1 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


^^         £*    ~~  ^ 


135  OTasftfnjjton  Street,  Boston, 
Juln  1,  1862. 

TICKNOR   AND    FIELDS'S 

LITERARY    ANNOUNCEMENTS. 

IN     PRESS. 

Edwin  Brothertoft.    By  THEODORE  WINTHKOP,  Author  of  "  John 
Brent,"  etc. 

Eyes  and  Ears.    By  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER,  Author  of  the  "  Star 
Papers,"  etc. 

Sylvia's  Lovers.    By  MRS.  GASKELL,  Author  of  "  Mary  Barton," 
etc. 

Titan.    JEAN  PAUL'S  great  Komance.    Now  first  translated.     By  C.  T. 
BROOKS. 

The   Patience   Of  Hope.     With  an  Introduction  by  J.  G.  WHIT- 
TIER. 

The   Golden   Hour.    By  M.  D.  CONWAY,  Author  of  the  "  Rejected 
Stone." 

The  New  Gymnastics,  for  Men,  "Women,  and  Children. 
By  DR.  Dio  LEWIS. 

Graver  Thoughts  of  a  Country  Parson.    By  the  Author  of 
"  Recreations,"  etc. 

The  Poems  of  Arthur  Hugh  Clough.    With  a  Memoir  of 
the  Author. 

Life  and  Correspondence  of  Theodore  Parker.    By  JOHN 

\Vi;iss. 

The  Amber  Gods,  and  other  Stories.    By  HARRIET  PRES- 
COTT,  Author  of  "  Sir  Rohan's  Ghost." 

Historic   Americans.     By  THEODORE  PARKER. 

The  Poems  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.    In  Blue  and  Gold. 

The  Poet's 'Journal.    By  BAYARD  TAYLOR. 

The  Flower  People.    By  MRS.  HORACE  MANN.    A  Summer  Book 
for  Children. 

Out-door  Life.    By  T.  WENTWORTH  HIGGINSON. 
Rose  Terry's  Stories. 

Health   and   Strength.     By  DR.  WINDSHIP,  the  strong  man. 
Fireside    Travels.     By  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


THE  GOLDEN  HOUR. 


MO  N  CURE    D.    CON'WAY, 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  REJECTED  STONE." 


Impera    parendo. 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR    ANDFIELDS. 

1862. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1862,  by 

MONCURE     D.     CONWAY, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


UNIVERSITY   PKESS: 

WELCH,    BIGELOW,    AND    COMPANY, 

CAMBRIDGE. 


Library 
E 


C7& 


CONTENTS. 


PAQI 

I.  POINT  OF  PERSPECTIVE 7 

II.  IN  CHANCERY      .        . 9 

III.  IN  COMMON  LAW 14 

IV.  MILITARY  NECESSITY 26 

V.  THE  Two  EDGES  OF  THE  SWORD         ...  30 

VL  FIGHTING  THE  DEVIL  WITH  FIRE  ...  36 

VII.  LIBERTY'S  LEGITIMATE  WEAPON  .  .  .  .42 

Vm.  THE  GRADUAL  PLAN  .  .  .  .  .  52 

IX.  WAR  FOR  THE  UNION 56 

X.  HOW   TO   HITCH   OUR   WAGON   TO   A    STAR             .  61 

XI.  THROUGH  SELF-CONQUEST  TO  CONQUEST     .        .  65 

XII.  A  POST-PRANDIAL  POINT 73 

XIII.  THE  PROBABILITIES  OF  INSURRECTION         .        .  76 

XIV.  MERCY,  AND  NOT  SACRIFICE      ....  82 
XV.  THE  CONSECRATION  OF  HEROISM          ...  88 

XVI.  A  POSSIBLE  BABYLON 94 

XVII.  THE  DIAL  OF  GROWTHS 102 

XVIH.  THE  GOLDEN  HOUR 112 

XIX.  THE  NEGRO     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  122 

XX.  To  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  .  128 

XXI.  SURSUM    CORDA  145 


ONCE  upon  a  time  an  innkeeper,  awakened  at  midnight 
by  caterwaulings  in  the  hall  below,  was  filled  with  wrath, 
and,  leaping  from  his  bed,  seized  a  poker,  and  rushed  down 
stairs  to  demolish  the  cats.  But  he  did  not  wait  to  light  a 
lamp  for  the  expedition.  The  unexpected  results  were,  that, 
in  striking  at  the  cats,  he  broke  the  hall-clock,  and  the  hall- 
lamp  ;  then,  falling,  he  broke  his  right  arm,  broke  two  teeth 
out,  and  sprained  an  ankle. 

In  fine,  he  hit  and  hurt  nearly  everything  except  the  cats. 

At  such  a  cost  the  innkeeper  learned  that  blindfold  zeal 
can  do  but  harm. 

—  Twenty  millions  of  men  and  women,  whose  hands  ply 
daily  sword  or  needle,  compelled  by  a  purpose  too  great 
for  them  to  define ;  a  million  men,  marching  and  eagerly 
awaiting  the  order  to  march  toward  the  valley  of  death ; 
manifold  Abrahams,  standing  beside  their  sons,  whom  their 
faith  has  bound  and  laid  on  altars  of  sacrifice ;  —  are  not 
these  signs  of  a  vitality  and  zeal  in  any  nation  adequate 
for  any  emergency? 

But  where  is  the  lamp  for  these  ?  How  many  more 
blunders  and  bruises  must  we  have  ere  we  demand  light 
upon  this  stairway,  on  which  we  can  climb,  down  which  we 
may  fall?  Thus  far  in  this  war  nearly  everything  has  been 
zealously  struck,  EXCEPT  THE  REAL  FOE  OP  THIS  NATION. 

The  writer  of  these  pages,  having  for  a  long  time  studied 


6 

this  wild  disease  at  the  South,  which  has  made  that  section 
into  its  own  image  and  likeness,  —  having  been  brought  by 
destiny  face  to  face  with  this  evil  in  the  South,  whose  spots 
of  contagion  he  has  also  marked  on  every  institution  of  the 
North,  —  believes  that  this  nation  has  but  one  foe,  and  that 
it  will  be  pursued  by  that  one  everywhere  and  always  until 
it  is  no  more  evaded,  but  met  and  destroyed,  as  it  easily 
can  be. 

Convinced  that  the  arch-traitor  is  not  Davis,  but  Slavery, 
and  that  the  age  is  worthy  of  an  army  of  saviours,  who 
shall,  by  its  destruction,  rescue,  besides  the  Union,  both  slave 
and  rebel,  I  send  forth  this  work,  trusting  that  it  may  help 
forward  the  day  when  the  only  war-cry  of  our  nation  shall 
be,  —  MERCY  TO  THE  SOUTH  !  DEATH  TO  SLAVERY  1 


THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 


I. 

POINT    OF    PERSPECTIVE. 

THERE  are  in  the  United  States  —  as  we  are  face- 
tiously termed  —  nearly  thirty-four  millions  of  human 
beings. 

Of  these,  three  hundred  and  forty-eight  thousand,  or 
about  one  ninety-eighth  of  our  population,  are  owners 
of  slaves. 

This  small  proportion  has,  ever  since  this  was  a  nation, 
preserved  in  our  midst  every  old  form  which  the  nation 
meant  to  abandon  ;  just  as  if  we  had  never  had  a  May- 
flower or  Bunker  Hill,  the  old  autocracies  and  aristocra- 
cies gathered  about  the  rich  board  of  the  New  World, 
the  thirty-three  millions  and  two  thirds  standing  behind 
the  chairs  of  the  handful  constituting  the  caste  of 
Owners  of  Human  Beings.  For  this  ninety-eighth  of 
their  number  the  millions  must  pour  out  their  hard 
earnings  to  buy  new  territory ;  for  this,  pour  out  their 
blood  to  rob  Mexico  of  territory  ;  for  this,  fear  to  call 
their  souls  their  own. 

It  made  no  difference  that  these  lived  in  so-called 


8  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

Free  States.  Did  they  go  South,  they  must  go  crawl- 
ing ;  or  West,  it  must  be  to  build  the  highways  of 
America  as  convicts  with  Slavery's  ball  and  chain  tied 
to  their  feet ;  whilst  at  home  they  saw  their  sacred 
growths,  Religion,  Education,  Literature,  and  Social 
Science,  with  a  worm  gnawing  at  every  core. 

At  length  this  pitiful  handful,  having  blighted  a  hun- 
dred thousand  square  miles  of  the  finest  land  in  the 
world,  having  kept  uncultivated  thrice  as  much  more, 
having  locked  up  in  impenetrable  barriers  the  richest 
metals  on  the  continent,  having  produced  an  average  of 
a  hundred  thousand  white  adults  in  every  Southern 
State  who  cannot  read  or  write,  having  kept  the  whole 
country  in  discord  and  hot  water  for  two  generations, 
have  finally  plunged  it  into  civil  war. 

Of  the  348,000  owners  of  slaves  in  America,  only 
18,000,  at  the  highest  estimate,  are  loyal;  and  these, 
being  generally  in  the  Border  States,  where  large  plan- 
tations of  slaves  are  not  found,  own  an  average  of  2| 
slaves  apiece. 

One  fortnight's  expenses  of  the  present  war  would 
pay  $  500  for  each  slave  held  by  any  person  at  present 
pretending  to  be  loyal. 

A  man  once  saw  a  fiery  dragon  descending  the  side 
of  a  distant  mountain :  starting  back  in  terror,  his  eye 
reached  a  true  point  of  perspective,  and  he  perceived 
that  the  dragon  was  the  minutest  of  spiders,  which  had 
swung  itself  down  too  close  to  his  eye  for  right  vision. 


IX   CHANCERY. 

II. 

IN    CHANCERY. 

IP  there  were  no  question  of  the  suppression  of  a 
vast  rebellion  involved  in  the  present  relations  of  the 
nation  with  Slavery,  it  would  be  a  momentous  ques- 
tion how  this  small  slaveholding  interest  has  gained 
such  an  ascendency  in  the  government  that  it  is  not 
held  as  attainted  even  by  treason.  Are  these  slave- 
holders, in  number  about  equal  to  the  population  of 
one  of  our  third-rate  cities,  the  royal  family  of  a  king 
that  can  do  no  wrong?  It  is  a  question  of  some 
interest  to  thirty  millions  of  men,  who,  fondly  imagin- 
ing themselves  living  under  a  democratic  government, 
see  their  rulers  suspending  universal  guaranties  of 
Liberty  rather  than  touch  the  right  of  eighteen  thou- 
sand men  to  do  wrong,  —  pulling  down  the  very  rafters 
of  the  house,  rather  than  destroy  the  rats'  nests. 

Before  this  nation  stand  two  classes  of  subjects. 
The  one  is  a  class  of  those  who,  having  received  every 
benefit  at  the  hands  of  the  nation,  and  no  burden, 
have  yet  betrayed  and  wronged  it,  and  inflicted  every 
stab  they  could  upon  it.  The  other  class  is  of  those 
who  have  received  at  the  hands  of  the  nation  nothing 
but  degradation  and  wrong,  who,  having  every  reason 
to  betray  it,  have  yet  never  betrayed  it  or  harmed  it. 
And,  lo,  between  these  two  the  nation  prefers  to  Let 
i* 


10  THE   GOLDEN  HOI  II. 

its  severest  blow  fall  on  the  poor  man  it  has  wronged, 
even  when  he  would  befriend  it,  though  it  strengthen 
the  arms  which  threaten  its  life  and  the  lives  of  its 
bravest  children  ! 

Can  any  one  account  for  the  infatuation  which  seizes 
our  public  men  whenever  they  catch  a  glimpse  of  an 
African,  or  anything  that  concerns  an  African  ?  How 
often  have  we  got  hold  of  some  man  whom  we  thought 
a  free-soiler,  and  sent  him  to  Washington  only  to  see 
him  at  the  first  step  on  its  threshold  turn  out  a 
soiler  of  freedom !  JSsop  tells  of  a  cat  which  had 
been  transformed  into  the  form  of  a  woman.  On  one 
occasion,  sitting  at  a  table  with  a  company,  none  of 
which  suspected  that  she  was  really  a  cat,  a  mouse 
made  its  appearance  on  the  floor ;  whereupon,  for- 
getting the  human  part  she  was  playing,  this  feline 
female  leaped  forward,  upset  the  table,  and  devoured 
the  mouse  before  the  astonished  company.  Moral: 
Instinct  will  tell,  under  whatever  forms.  Never  be 
sure  that  your  politician,  however  transformed  he  may 
Beem,  is  a  genuine  man,  until  you  have  seen  a  negro 
pass  safely  within  reach  of  his  official  paw. 

Get  close  enough  to  the  interior  life  of  an  American 
politician,  and  you  will  be  pretty  sure  to  find  that 
it  stands  in  his  religious  faith,  that  the  stripes  in  our 
flag  have  a  Swedenborgian  correspondence  to  stripes 
on  a  black  man's  back.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  in  this 
they  represent  the  prejudice  or  the  indifference  of 
the  people.  Lately  I  saw  two  negroes  thrust  from  a 


IN   CHANCERY.  11 

car  in  New  York,  on  a  night  so  stormy  and  bitter 
that  it  Would  have  been  cruel  to  expel  a  brute.  A 
dog  in  the  same  car  slept  at  the  feet  of  his  master, 
undisturbed. 

Thus  is  Slavery  rotting  the  very  heart  of  Manhood 
throughout  this  country. 

We  have  learned  nothing  of  Slavery,  if  we  have  not 
learned  this  truth,  to  wit,  —  THAT  SLAVERY  HAS  NO  WILL 
OF  ITS  OWN.  There  has  been  a  delusion  in  this  country, 
that  Slavery  is  a  free-agent;  and  when,  in  Kanzas, 
the  ballot  of  Freedom  was  responded  to  by  the  torch 
and  bowie-knife,  —  when,  in  the  whole  nation,  the  ballot 
was  replied  to  by  a  bomb  into  Fort  Sumter,  —  we  began 
to  awake  to  the  perception  that  Slavery  has  no  free 
choice.  Slavery  is  more  a  slave  than  any  man  it  fetters. 
It  had  no  choice  but  to  fire  on  Sumter.  Chemistry 
does  not  more  by  fixed  laws  make  a  boulder,  than  by 
fixed  laws  Slavery  hurls  it  at  the  head  of  Wendell 
Phillips.  Slavery  is  in  the  coils  of  Fate,  and  must, 
if  it  exists,  obey  its  own  dark  laws. 

The  other  day  a  man  —  and  that  is  a  rarer  creature 
than  is  generally  supposed  —  stood  upon  the  soil  of 
Virginia.  Slavery  said,  "  He  is  firm,  truthful,  intelli- 
gent, —  the  gamest  man  I  ever  saw,"  —  then  proceeded 
to  hang  him.  Slavery  would  have  hung  him  had  it 
been  Jesus  Christ,  because  it  must. 

The  common  sense  of  the  country  has  already  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  Slavery  is  the  cause  of  the  war. 
But  it  must  be  seen  that  war  is  the  legitimate  appen- 


12  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

dage  and  weapon  of  Slavery ;  that  Slavery  is  perpetual 
war ;  that  this  war  is  but  the  effort  to  extend  Slavery's 
already  existing  martial  law  over  the  entire  govern- 
ment. Only  by  military  power  has  Slavery  been  re- 
tained in  this  country.  In  the  cities  of  the  North, 
when  its  claim  to  some  fugitive  was  to  be  asserted, 
we  have  seen  its  martial  array ;  but  this  was  only  the 
cropping  out  of  the  constant  state  of  things  in  thd" 
South.  Nightly  patrols ;  the  punishment  of  men  from 
the  North  without  process  of  law ;  the  frequent  sup- 
pression of  the  usual  laws  for  reasons  of  state ;  the 
suppression  of  all  discussion  concerning  Slavery ;  — 
these  are  possible  only  where  martial  law  is  habitual. 
The  present  war  is  only  the  extension  and  exasperation 
of  what  has  been  all  along  the  method  in  the  war  of 
the  strong  race  against  the  weak  in  the  South. 

It  would  seem,  then,  in  the  light  of  simple  equity, 
that  the  natural  method  of  suppressing  Slavery's  rebel- 
lion would  be  found  in  some  way  of  dealing  with  Slav- 
ery itself.  Nature  has  the  penalties  of  violating  her 
laws  always  in  the  direction  of  the  transgression  itself; 
a  fall  bruises',  putting  one's  hand  in  fire  is  followed  by 
a  burn;  and  every  habitual  sin,  as  licentiousness  or 
drunkenness,  is  followed  by  a  train  of  diseases  pecu- 
liarly its  own,  and  growing  out  of  its  own  organic  char- 
acter. There  is  no  confusion  of  penalties ;  one  is 
not  burnt  by  falling,  nor  bruised  by  fire. 

This  way  we  have  of  seizing  the  sword  on  every 
occasion  to  punish  or  meet  indiscriminately  all  attacks, 


IN   CHANCERY.  13 

is  barbarous.  In  the  laws  of  this  universe,  where  every 
sin  has  its  own  penalty,  the  retribution  never  fails  of 
being  effectual.  The  child  which  has  once  put  its  hand 
to  the  fire,  never  repeats  the  experiment.  Nations  and 
men  must  translate  these  great  laws  of  Nature,  and 
then  their  defences  will  never  be  of  doubtful  strength. 

The  rebellion  of  Slavery  should  at  once  have  been 
followed  by  our  only  logical  reply,  —  the  abolition  of 
Slavery. 

Suppose  that,  in  reply  to  that  bomb  which  fell  into 
Fort  Sumter,  our  President  had  seized  the  pen,  instead 
of  the  sword,  and  written  such  a  proclamation  as 
this  :  — 

"  Slavery,  from  being  a  domestic  institution  in  cer- 
tain States,  with  which  the  government  had  nothing  to 
do,  having  become  the  common  foe  of  all  the  States, 
with  which  the  government  has  everything  to  do,  it  is 
hereby  declared  that  all  the  slaves  in  this  country  are 
free,  and  they  are  hereby  justified  in  whatever  measures 
they  may  find  necessary  to  maintain  their  freedom. 
Loyal  masters  are  assured  that  they  shall  be  properly 
compensated  for  losses  resulting  from  this  decree." 

Every  rebel  owning  a  slave,  or  living  within  miles  of 
one,  would,  as  by  the  wand  of  an  enchanter,  have  re- 
mained spell-bound  at  his  fireside,  where  he  ought  to 
be.  There  could  have  been  no  war. 


14  THE   GOLDEN   IIOUK. 

III. 

IN    COMMON    LAW. 

DURING  a  residence  of  some  years  at  Washington,  I 
found  that  there  was  a  clause  in  the  Constitution  used 
there,  which  I  have  vainly  looked  for  in  my  copy  :  it 
ran  as  follows  :  — 

"  Art.  — ,  Sec.  — .  Any  legislation  on  the  part  of  Con- 
gress liable  to  the  charge  of  being  morally  right  shall 
be  held  SLS prima facie  unconstitutional;  this,  however, 
shall  not  invalidate  such  legislation,  if  it  can  be  proved 
that  its  moral  character  is  simply  a  coincidence." 

I  have  seen  good  Republicans  grow  red  in  the  face 
with  showing  that  they  were  maintaining  freedom  sim- 
ply for  strategy  or  expediency,  and  indignantly  avow- 
ing that  they  were  not  actuated  by  any  motives  of 
humanity  or  rectitude. 

So  we  must  not  dwell  upon  any  such  little  point  as 
the  moral  ulceration  of  a  whole  nation,  so  much  as  upon 
the  prospective  waving  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes  on  the 
custom-house  in  Charleston. 

But,  even  in  the  eye  of  the  organic  law,  we  maintain 
that  the  right  to  abolish  Slavery  is  antecedent  to  the 
right  of  taking  the  sword.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  Pres- 
ident to  "  suppress  insurrections  "  ;  but  there  is  no  in- 
timation that  the  Executive  shall,  in  suppressing  insur- 
rections, be  confined  to  the  method  of  bloodshed.  If, 


IN   COMMON  LAW.  15 

indeed,  bloodshed  is  the  only  method  or  the  best  method, 
he  is  sworn  not  to  shrink  from  that ;  but  if  the  end 
could  be  reached  by  anything  more  humane,  it  is  his 
duty  to  remember  that  the  sword  is  termed  the  ultima 
ratio,  —  the  last  resort  of  states. 

If  in  the  present  case  there  was  a  probability  that  the 
insurrection  could  be  put  down  without  bloodshed,  say 
by  slaveryshed,  it  were  the  legal  duty  of  our  President 
to  try  the  slaveryshed  first.  When  the  alternative  is 
the  dreadful  one  of  civil  war,  the  method  which  dealt 
directly  through  Slavery  the  paralytic  stroke  would  not 
demand,  any  more  than  a  naval  expedition,  a  cer- 
tainty, but  merely  a  probability,  of  success. 

Amongst  all  the  rights  which  have  been  claimed  for 
Slavery,  as  guaranteed  in  the  Constitution,  there  is  one 
which  no  man  has  ever  been  bold  enough  to  try  and 
make  out ;  that  is,  THE  EIGHT  OF  EXISTENCE.  Slavery 
has  the  right  to  the  rendition  of  fugitives,  —  so  long 
as  it  exists ;  the  right  of  representation,  —  so  long  as 
it  exists  ;  but  nowhere  the  right  to  exist.  Our  fathers 
did  not  expect  it  to  continue  in  existence,  and  made 
no  arrangement  to  secure  it  should  that  existence  be 
threatened. 

Its  right  to  be  let  alone  in  the  States  where  it  exists 
is  simply  a  negative  right,  held  "  during  life  or  good 
behavior "  ;  and  our  fathers  were  not  such  knaves 
as  to  guarantee  its  life,  nor  such  fools  as  to  guarantee 
its  good  behavior. 

Leaving  out  of  the  account  any  demand  of  military 


16  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

necessity  that  every  slave's  chain  should  be  struck  off 
by  a  decree  of  emancipation,  it  is  important  to  bear 
in  mind  that  our  President  has  no  oath  registered 
to  protect  Slavery.  The  counterpart  of  the  right  of 
Slavery  to  be  let  alone  in  the  States  where  it  confines 
itself,  is  the  forfeiture  of  any  claim  to  protection  from 
any  influence  in  Nature  or  Civilization  which  may 
threaten  its  existence.  If  by  lifting  his  finger  the 
President  could  save  Slavery  from  death,  he  would 
have  no  right  to  lift  his  little  finger ;  it  would  be  ,as 
unconstitutional  to  save  it  in  any  State,  as  it  would 
be,  under  the  usual  and  peaceful  process  of  govern- 
ment, to  destroy  it  in  any  State  by  an  official  act. 

In  the  present  conflict,  Slavery  has  cast  itself  directly 
across  the  track  where  the  President  has  sworn  to 
engineer  the  government,  and  he  has  no  right  even  to 
put  down  the  brakes  to  save  it  from  being  cut  in  two. 
He  has  stretched  his  constitutional  authority  to  the 
utmost  in  having  sounded  the  whistle  to  warn  it,  as 
he  did  recently  in  his  special  message. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  right  of  the  States 
to  regulate  their  own  domestic  institutions  is  one  grow- 
ing out  of  the  nature  of  the  government  which  our 
Constitution  established.  But  the  friends  of  Slavery 
have  of  late  years  been  pressing  this  feature  of  our 
government  so  far  as  to  break  it,  —  carrying  it  so  far 
that  the  national  government  was  represented  as  some- 
thing which  had  a  use,  but,  having  created  various  sov- 
ereign States,  was  now  only  fit  to  be  thrown  away,  like 


IN  COMMON  LAW.  17 

a  pod  from  which  the  peas  have  been  gathered.  To 
put  the  case  beyond  the  reach  of  prejudice,  let  us  im- 
agine a  case  which  cannot  occur,  but  which  is  parallel : 
Cotton  is  a  staple  which  any  State  has  a  right  to  pro- 
duce. But  suppose  some  year  all  the  cotton  planted 
should  bear  a  fatally  poisonous  flower,  which  should 
be  woven  into  garments  deadly  to  the  wearers.  Sup- 
pose that  it  was  determined  that,  owing  to  some  new 
atmospheric  conditions,  the  cotton-plant  if  grown  must 
continue  a  fatal  poison.  Then,  if  any  State  should 
persist  in  raising  and  selling  that  staple,  the  United 
States  would  be  compelled  to  interfere  to  prevent  it. 
No  specific  power  would  be  necessary  for  such  inter- 
ference ;  for  such  a  State  would  be  an  outlaw  with 
which  any  nation  (a  fortiori  that  to  which  it  owed 
allegiance)  would  have  a  right  to  interfere.  Now, 
Slavery  having  always  spread  malaria  throughout  the 
nation,  has  this  year  actually  borne  a  poisonous  har- 
vest,—  which,  uninterfered  with,  must  prove  fatal  to 
republican  government.  Then  the  general  government 
has  a  right  to  deal  with  it  no  longer  as  a  domestic 
institution,  but  as  a  public  foe.  'Tis  its  duty,  even 
in  the  Border  States,  where  the  crop  comes  on  later, 
to  arrest  the  institution  before  it  has  reached  the  fatal 
maturity  of  treason  there  also.  Already  we  have  heard 
Garrett  Davis  advise  Kentucky  to  resist  laws  of  the 
United  States. 

The   question   whether   Slavery   is  a  national   or   a 
State  institution  is  this  year  a  sheer  impertinence.     I 


18  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

have  observed  that,  when  Slavery  wants  new  territory 
or  a  fugitive  negro,  it  is  always  a  national  institution ; 
when  it  wants  discussion  throttled,  or,  in  the  pathetic 
words  of  Jeff.,  "  to  be  let  alone,"  it  is  always  a  State 
institution.  According  to  the  States-Rights  interpreta- 
tion, our  fathers  put  it  together  in  the  hasty  way  in 
which  the  marvellous  dog  spoken  of  in  the  advertise- 
ments of  Spalding's  glue  was  put  together.  The  dog, 
being  cut  in  two,  was  instantly  made  whole  by  this 
wonderful  preparation  ;  but  so  hastily  were  the  parts 
put  together,  that  the  hind-legs  and  fore-legs  projected 
in  opposite  directions.  So  the  dog  went  through  the 
remainder  of  his  life  running  on  his  fore-legs  until 
he  got  tired,  then  turning  a  summerset  and  running 
on  his  hind-legs.  Slavery  having  gone,  as  its  advan- 
tages suggested,  now  on  national,  now  on  State  leg's, 
has  at  length  thrown  itself  across  the  nation's  track, 
and,  if  the  train  comes  in  "  on  time,"  will  be  cut  in 
two  once  more  ;  and,  though  our  Border-State  friends 
are  already  offering  in  advance  Spalding's  genuine, 
dog-cheap,  let  us  hope  that  this  dog  has  had  his  day. 
In  all  the  States  which  have  seceded,  the  gate  of 
liberation  has  been  opened  by  purblind  oppression's 
own  hand.  If,  as  this  government  declares,  Slavery  is 
a  State  institution,  it  must,  in  the  eyes  of  this  govern- 
ment, fall  when  the  State  government  falls.  A  number 
of  "  the  weaker  brethren "  in  Congress  have  raised  a 
cry  that  this  position  concedes  what  the  rebels  claim, 
that  a  State  can  be  wrested  from  the  Union  ;  and  Mr. 


IN  COMMON   LAW.  19 

Montgomery  Blair  has  given  a  blatant  assent  to  that 
cry.  I  will  not  say  that  these  men  thus  prove  them- 
selves unfit  to  legislate  for  a  nation  whose  institutions 
they  thus  estimate ;  but  if  the  following  statements  shall 
lead  any  mind  to  that  inference,  I  shall  not  complain  of 
being  misunderstood. 

Where  is  the  court  or  power  in  any  seceded  State 
which  this  government  can  recognize  ?  Suppose  the 
Governor  of  any  seceded  State  should  claim  from  Gov- 
ernor Andrew  of  Massachusetts  the  return  of  a  criminal 
to  that  State.  Would  the  Governor,  who  is  bound  to 
return  persons  accused  of  crime  to  the  States  in  which 
the  crimes  were  committed,  return  a  criminal  to  Gov- 
ernor Pickens  ? 

Suppose  even  a  loyal  Carolinian  to  claim  a  negro 
within  our  lines  at  Port  Royal,  in  what  court  is  the 
case  to  be  decided  ?  There  is  no  court,  large  or  small, 
in  that  State,  which  could  be  recognized  without  sur- 
rendering the  whole  case  of  the  United  States.  Even 
if  the  United  States  had  a  Commissioner  there  for  the 
purpose,  he  cannot  even  try  the  case  except  the  claim- 
ant bring  a  certificate  of  ownership  from  a  loyal  court 
in  that  State ;  but  where  will  such  a  court  be  found  ? 

This  principle  would  be  at  once  seen  if  it  referred 
to  white-faced  minors  and  apprentices.  If  a  few  thou- 
sand of  these  should  desert  the  South,  for  our  lines,  and 
the  parents  and  'prentice-masters,  loyal  or  rebel,  should 
seek  to  have  them  returned,  as  "  owing  service  "  under 
the  laws  of  their  States,  would  our  government  treat 


20  THE  GOLDEN  HOUR. 

such  State  codes  as  still  in  existence  ?  Would  this 
government  return  a  few  regiments  of  youths  under 
age,  who  wished  to  fight  for  us,  to  their  parents  ?  Is 
it  not  anxious  to  draw  away  from  rebel  lines  all  of 
these  it  can  ? 

It  does  not  follow  that  the  State,  as  a  member  of  this 
government,  has  committed  suicide,  but  only  that  all 
it  has,  by  its  own  separate  authority,  established,  is 
laid  in  ruins.  The  blow  aimed  by  States'  Rights  at  the 
authority  of  the  nation  strikes  to  the  heart  of  those 
very  Rights,  and  those  alone  ;  for  the  crime  places  the 
State  before  the  supreme  government  in  the  attitude 
of  a  criminal,  whose  allegiance  is  still  perfect,  but  whose 
rights  are  exactly  what  the  supreme  tribunal  decides 
them  to  be. 

No  State  can  affect  so  much  of  its  existence  as  is 
derived  from,  and  dependent  upon,  acts  of  the  general 
government.  It  can  destroy  its  own  courts,  but  not  its 
United  States  District  Court. 

The  United  States  is  engaged  in  an  unjustifiable 
war,  if  judged  by  any  other  theory  than  that  the 
seceded  "States  are  in  a  state  of  anarchy ;  and  anarchy 
is  emancipation,  because  Slavery  rests  upon  certain 
special  (exclusively)  State  enactments,  which  being 
now  withdrawn,  it  falls  to  the  ground.  If  not,  let  some 
one  show  us  why:  of  all  peculiar  and  domestic  institu- 
tions,—  such  as  the  laws  punishing  as  criminals  anti- 
slavery  men,  and  also  those  who  teach  negroes  to  read 
or  write, — slave-ownership  alone  has  an  ark  in  which  to 


IN  COMMON  LAW.  21 

survive  the  deluge.  If  this  war  is  a  real  thing  with  us, 
our  government  is  engaged  in  establishing  laws  and  their 
forms  in  places  where  all  laws  have  been  overthrown, 
with  all  the  rights  and  wrongs  held  under  them :  univer- 
sal law  it  may  establish  there,  but  not  local  law ;  and 
if  Slavery  exists  any  more  in  such  localities,  it  will 
be  by  an  act  of  this  government,  as  purely  arbitrary 
and  infamous  as  if  it  imported  so  many  slaves  from 
Africa. 

For  the  United  States  occupying  Virginia  to  establish 
there  the  local  laws  and  institutions  which  had  existed 
in  that  State,  any  more  than  those  of  New  York,  is  ultra 
vires.  The  United  States  not  only  has  no  such  author- 
ity, but  in  the  present  case  to  recognize  the  relation  of 
master  and  slave  in  the  South  is  simply  to  follow  in  the 
fearful  furrows  of  civil  war,  and  sow  them  with  the 
winds  whose  harvests  shall  be  whirlwinds  such  as  we  are 
to-day  reaping. 

To  all  the  technical  objections  offered  to  this  position, 
—  based  on  the  idea  of  Centralization,  the  twin-error 
with  State-sovereignty,  —  which  hold  that  a  State  can- 
not violate  its  compact  with  the  general  government, 
the  law  replies  with  its  maxim,  Via  facti,  via  juris. 

But  however  important  these  views  may  be,  the 
argument  for  Emancipation  need  not  rest  upon  them : 
indeed,  so  systematically  have  the  negroes  been  kept 
from  the  means  of  knowing  their  rights,  that  their 
liberty  must  rise  upon  them,  clear  and  unmistakable, 
like  a  sunrise. 


i>2  TilE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

We  need,  then,  an  edict  without  reservation  declaring 
that  this  government  recognizes  all  men  in  this  country 
as  free.  This  edict  may  come  from  two  sources :  — 

I.   CONGRESS  MAY  DECLARE  SLAVERY  ABOLISHED. 

1.  By  the  power  (Art.  I.  §  8)  to  provide  for  the 
common  defence  and  general  welfare.  2.  By  the  duty 
(Art.  IV.  §  4)  assigned  the  government,  to  guarantee 
to  every  State  in  this  Union  a  republican  form  of 
government.  "When  Congress  has  the  manliness  to  see, 
what  it  requires  ingenuity  not  to  see,  that  the  common 
defence  is  weakened  and  the  general  welfare  impaired 
by  the  existence  of  Slavery  in  this  country,  it  is  under 
oath  to  abolish  that  system,  under  the  first  of  these 
clauses.  When  it  has  the  common  sense  to  see  that 
Slavery  and  the  rebellion  are  united  as  cause  and  effect, 
and  recognizes  the  normal  hostility  of  Slavery  towards 
the  ballot-box,  —  i.  e.  to  the  republican  form  of  gov- 
ernment it  is  pledged  to  maintain  in  every  State,  —  it 
is  sworn  no  longer  to  harbor  it  in  the  country. 

It  is  not  to  the  point  to  say  that  the  majority  of  the 
States  which  adopted  the  Constitution  held  slaves.  Law 
is,  essentially,  the  higher  nature  of  man  enthroned  over 
his  lower.  Criminals  are  every  day  punished  by  laws 
which  they  pay  to  sustain,  and  acknowledge  to  be  just 
and  authentic.  Many  slaveholders  voted  for  the  prin- 
ciple that  "  all  men  are  created  equal."  This  ques- 
tion is  to  be  considered  apart  from  the  practice  of  the 
States  and  individuals  who  made  our  Constitution,  as 
much  as  apart  from  their  religious  persuasions. 


IN   COMMON   LAW.  23 

The  compromise  which  our  fathers  made  with  Slavery 
was  not  the  one-sided  affair  which  some  new  schools 
would  have  us  believe.  They  gave  protection  to  the 
system  as  long  as  it  should  last ;  but,  on  the  other  part, 
they  gained  the  POWER  OVER  IT  which  such  protection 
implies.  The  abolition  of  Slavery  by  Congress  requires 
no  amendment  of  the  Constitution,  simply  because 
there  is  no  word  in  the  compact  securing  that  institu- 
tion from  the  natural  effect  of  legislation  for  the  general 
welfare.  Consequently,  its  extinction  is  committed  to 
the  growth  of  opinion,  and  may  be  reached  at  any  mo- 
ment when  the  judgment  of  Congress  shall  enact  that 
henceforth  the  clauses  relating  to  "  persons  held  to 
service "  shall  be  held  as  applicable  only  to  minors 
and  apprentices. 

The  fact  that  these  clauses,  when  adopted,  were  meant 
to  protect  Slavery,  along  with  the  liability  of  minors 
and  apprentices,  is  balanced  by  the  fact  that  its  specific 
mention  was  left  out  for  the  very  purpose  of  rendering 
its  tenure  insecure. 

But  the  strictest  constructionist,  or  the  most  sensi- 
tive traditionalist,  will  admit  at  once  that  the  Slavery- 
institution  to  which  our  fathers  gave  a  quasi-protection 
in  the  Constitution  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  the 
Slavery-institution  which  it  is  now  proposed  to  abolish. 
Slavery  establishing  the  ballot-box  over  its  own  head  is 
a  different  thing  from  Slavery  trampling  on  the  ballot- 
box.  Slavery  helping  to  rear  a  republican  government 
is  a  different  institution  from  that  which  comes  with 
murderous  weapon  to  strike  it  out  of  existence. 


24  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

The  truth  is,  it  is  a  doomed  institution.  Our  fathers 
pronounced  sentence  on  it,  giving  it  the  benefit  of 
clergy,  whereof  it  has  availed  itself  to  the  last  stretch 
of  grace.  The  day  and  deed  of  execution  they  assigned 
to  their  posterity.  From  us  it  may  get  a  reprieve  ; 
but  a  pardon,  never ! 

II.  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  AS  COM- 
MANDER-IN-CHIEF OF  OUR  ARMY  AND  NAVY,  MAY  'ABOL- 
ISH SLAVERY  UNDER  MARTIAL  LAW. 

This  is  a  purely  military  power,  and  consequently 
Congress  cannot,  under  the  war  power,  abolish  Slavery. 
Congress  may,  however,  impeach  the  President,  if,  to 
the  detriment  of  the  Republic,  he  should  refuse  to  do 
this. 

The  war  power  being  legitimated  by  the  Constitution, 
its  edicts  are  constitutional  law  until  repealed  by  due 
process  of  legislation,  remaining  in  force  after  the 
exigency  which  evoked  them  is  past.  The  slaves  of 
rebels  in  the  department  lately  under  J.  C.  Fremont 
are  legally,  as  under  martial  law  he  declared  them, 
free  men ;  and  should  any  one  of  them  sue  for  liberty, 
he  could  only  be  surrendered  to  his  master  by  a 
decision  that  the  President's  modification  of  Mr.  Fre- 
mont's Proclamation  was  a  military  order  of  re-en- 
slavement^ superseding  ordinary  process  of  law. 

They  are  either  free  men,  or  the  President  has,  for 
military  reasons,  sent  them  to  the  dungeon  of  Slavery, 
as  he  has  sent  political  prisoners  to  Fort  Warren. 


IN   COMMON   LAW.  25 

It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that,  if  the  slaves  were 
declared  free  by  the  Corninander-in-Chief,  the  effect  of 
such  proclamation  would  pass  away  when  the  rebellion 
was  suppressed.  The  President  might,  during  the  war, 
and  under  the  power  which  had  emancipated  them, 
re-enslave  them, — holding  himself  ready,  in  both  cases, 
to  show  the  military  reasons  for  his  action.  He  is  sup- 
posed to  act  by  necessity.  But  except  by  such  military 
necessity  and  power,  he  could  not  revoke  his  procla- 
mation. It  would  be  law  until  unmade  by  Congress. 

Equally  is  it  an  error  to  suppose  that  any  State 
would  be  able,  after  the  liberation  of  slaves  by  the 
United  States,  to  re-enslave  them. 

Whilst  the  government  recognizes  as  slaves  those 
who  are  so  by  birth  and  by  fact,  yet  for  a  State  to 
enslave  a  man  whom  even  its  own  laws  have  pro- 
nounced free,  would  be  contrary  to  the  article  of 
the  Constitution  which  secures  every  "  person "  from 
being  arbitrarily  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property ; 
but  that  slaves  liberated  by  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  could  not  be  made  slaves  by  any  State,  is  mani- 
fest from  Art.  VI.  of  the  Constitution,  which  declares : 
"  This  Constitution,  and  the  laws  of  the  United  States 
which  shall  be  made  in  pursuance  thereof,  and  all  trea- 
ties made,  or  which  shall  be  made,  under  the  authority 
of  the  United  States,  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land;  and  the  judges  in  every  State  shall  be  bound 
thereby,  anything  in  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  any 
State  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding." 


26  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

IV. 

MILITARY   NECESSITY. 

IT  is  claimed  that  the  military  general  is  the  judge 
of  what  military  necessity  requires. 

The  military  general  is  the  judge  of  the  methods  by 
which  certain  movements  are  to  be  accomplished.  It  is 
manifest,  however,  that  specific  movements  and  methods 
are,  to  a  great  extent,  determined  by  the  great  object  to 
be  accomplished  by  the  entire  system  of  movements. 
General  McClellan  is  the  judge  of -how  to  reach  Rich- 
mond ;  but  of  the  object  we  have  in  reaching  Richmond 
he  is  not  at  all  the  judge.  The  nation  must  assign  the 
aim,  and  then  its  officers  must  decide  what  means  are 
necessary  to  that  aim.  It  is  clear,  that,  if  the  demand 
of  the  nation  were  simply  that  our  flag  should  wave 
over  some  forts  and  custom-houses  from  which  it  has 
been  taken  down,  the  military  necessities  involved 
would  be  very  different  from  what  they  would  be  if 
the  demand  were  that  this  rebellion  should  be  crushed 
in  such  a  way  as  that  it  should  be  absolutely  impos- 
sible ever  to  have  another. 

The  war  power  is  not  limited  to  a  specific  military 
movement,  but  extends  to  any  aim  which  the  people 
may  hold  as  essential  to  the  stability,  peace,  and  honor 
of  their  country. 

The  war  power  —  the  power  unsealed    by  military 


MILITARY  NECESSITY.  27 

necessity  —  is  not  dependent  in  its  action  upon  the 
absolute  indispensableness  of  the  measures  it  proposes. 
It  is  justified  in  that  it  secures  any  advantage  greater 
than  the  price  paid.  If  a  conflagration  were  sweeping 
through  a  city,  and  there  were  a  probability  that  the 
blowing  up  of  John  Doe's  house  would  arrest  it,  John 
Doe's  lawful  "  castle "  would  be  blown  up.  J.  D. 
might  give  good  reasons  to  show  that  the  flames  would 
presently  be  arrested  without  that  measure  ;  but  if  it 
were  probable  that  two  houses  might  be  saved  by  de- 
stroying this  one,  it  would  be  done.  In  such  emergen- 
cies the  scale  of  values  rules.  The  cow-shed  must  be 
sacrificed  for  the  cabin,  the  cabin  for  the  mansion,  the 
mansion  for  two  mansions. 

Thus  no  advantage  could  be  so  small  but  it  would,  by 
martial  law,  justify  the  destruction  of  Slavery.  If  by 
abolishing  the  unmitigated  curse  of  this  land  the  life  of 
one  soldier  could  be  saved,  we  should  be  the  murderers 
of  that  soldier  if  we  did  not  abolish  it.  If  by  slaying 
this  pursuing  demon  we  could  bring  peace  to  the  coun- 
try ten  minutes  sooner  than  without  it,  we  should  be 
traitors  to  civilization  if  we  did  not  do  it.  For  the 
one  soldier's  life,  the  ten  minutes'  additional  peace, 
would  be  worth  something  ;  the  infernal  thing  we 
should  pay  for  these  must  be  reckoned  worth  less  than 
nothing. 

IN  WAR  SLAVERY  is  THE  STRENGTH  OP  THE  SOUTH. — 
The  institution  of  Slavery,  which  in  time  of  peace  is 
a  weakness  of  the  South,  is  in  time  of  war,  and  un- 


28  THE   GOLDEN  HOUB. 

touched  by  us,  strong  enough  to  equal  the  numbers  and 
means  of  the  North.  It  has  not  yet  been  sufficiently 
considered  that  war  and  Slavery  naturally  consort ;  war 
was  the  cradle  of  Slavery  ;  the  first  slaves  were  war-cap- 
tives. In  essence  Slavery  is  the  imposition  of  one  will 
on  another  by  physical  force  ;  in  that  alone  it  differs 
from  spontaneous  or  free  labor.  And  war  is  but  the 
acute  form  of  the  same  disease.  Slavery  has  been  a 
perpetual  training  for  the  camp. 

Every  man  who  leaves  the  North  for  the  field  of  bat- 
tle is  a  laborer,  and  leaves  so  much  derangement  in  the 
usual  social  integrity  ;  some  wheel  of  the  machine  stops 
when  he  goes,  and  some  deprivation  ensues ;  but  in  the 
South  the  "war  is  the  vent  of  idlers,  giving  aim  to  lives 
hitherto  aimless.  This  military  life  is  a  step  in  advance 
for  the  South,  which  has  already  displayed  energies  of 
which  it  had  not  been  suspected.  The  South  will  not 
get  sick  of  war  so  soon  as  the  North,  it  being  quite 
atwin  with  its  Slavery  for  the  South  to  become  formally 
a  military  country.  Whilst  the  training  of  Freedom  has 
led  the  North  every  day  farther  from  war,  every  day 
of  Slavery  has  accustomed  the  South  to  it.  The  North 
has  to  go  back  a  hundred  years  to  reach  the  plane  of 
war  ;  the  land  of  Slavery  never  was  beyond  it. 

In  war  all  you  have  added  to  the  world  in  a  century 
is  not  only  out  of  place,  but  in  your  way  ;  only  the 
coarsest  and  rudest  things  avail  here,  and  those  who 
are  most  at  home  in  the  coarsest  and  rudest  forces  will, 
in  a  conflict  of  mere  brute  force,  be  apt  to  win.  Now 


MILITARY  NECESSITY.  29 

here  are  four  millions  of  slaves  working  for  the  South. 
There  being  for  military  purposes  corn  and  pork  want- 
ed, and  not  arts  and  elegances,  all  the  superiority  of 
intelligent  over  unintelligent  labor  ceases.  The  man 
who  can  dig  a  row  of  corn  or  feed  swine  is  equal  to  the 
finest  mechanic.  And  since  every  man  who  produces  a 
soldier's  ration  points  the  soldier  at  us,  just  as  the  sol- 
dier points  his  gun  at  us,  these  four  millions  of  negroes 
must  be  counted  as  our  foes,  whatever  their  feeling 
toward  us. 

The  South  is,  then,  at  the  start,  twelve  millions  to  our 
eighteen.  But  of  our  eighteen  the  women  do  not  work 
in  the  field,  and  the  children  go  to  school,  whereas  the 
black  women  and  minors  do  work  in  the  field,  —  which, 
for  military  force,  would  make  them  nearly  fifteen  mil- 
lions. Then  we  must  estimate  production  in  its  relation 
to  consumption :  the  black  laborer,  being  fed  at  less 
than  a  third  the  cost  of  the  corresponding  Northern 
laborer,  sustains  at  least  two  more  soldiers  in  the  field 
than  the  Northerner.  Thus  does  the  reign  of  barba- 
rism reverse  all  the  advantages  of  free  over  slave  labor. 
In  a  conflict  of  mere  brute  force,  Slavery  has  only  to 
emphasize  the  old  menace,  fetter  and  bowie-knife,  to 
which  it  is  accustomed. 

The  North  has  imagined  that  it  could  bring  the  bal- 
ance to  its  side  by  its  superior  wealth ;  but  it  must  be 
remembered,  that  those  who  get  without  paying  for  it 
what  others  have  to  pay  for,  are  as  rich  as  if  they  had 
the  wherewithal  to  pay.  Who  would  wish  to  be  trou- 


30  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

bled  with  money,  if  lie  could  get  things  for  a  dollar  a 
year  spent  in  cowhides  ? 

In  the  above  estimate,  which  would  make  the  con- 
tending parties  in  this  country  substantially  equal  in 
numerical  force,  it  has  not  been  forgotten  that  it  is 
urged  that  a  large  portion  of  the  Southern  people  are 
Unionists.  Although  the  evidences  of  this  seem  to  me 
slight,  it  would  be,  if  true,  of  less  bearing  upon  the 
question  than  might  be  at  first  supposed.  For,  no  mat- 
ter what  a  man's  sympathies  may  be,  he  cannot  labor  in 
any  section  but  he  adds  to  the  wealth  of  that  section, 
and  to  its  military  stores  and  strength. 


V. 

THE  TWO  EDGES  OF  THE  SWORD. 

THE  sword  has  two  edges ;  one  is  turned  toward  the 
user,  and  never  fails  to  give  him  a  wound  for  each 
inflicted  on  his  antagonist. 

What  does  the  settlement  of  this  conquest  by  mere 
military  force  imply  to  the  Free  States  ?  They  say  that 
our  army  is  not  thorough  in  its  morale ;  which  means, 
that  the  young  man  who  was  graduated  last  year  is  yet 
too  full  of  culture  and  civilization  to  butcher  his  fellow- 
beings  after  the  most  approved  Texan  style.  He  has 


THE   TWO  EDGES   OF   THE   SWORD.  31 

not  forgotten  that  his  mother  and  his  pastor  taught  him 
to  overcome  evil  with  good.  The  gentleman  is  still,  to 
a  melancholy  extent,  predominant  in  him,  the  horse 
and  alligator  sadly  deficient. 

This  moralization  of  the  soldier  is  the  demoraliza- 
tion of  the  man.  War  is  the  apotheosis  of  brutality. 
Looking  into  the  past,  we  see  it  as  a  climax  of  horrors 
when  a  harlot  is  borne  through  the  streets  of  Paris, 
proclaimed  the  Goddess  of  Reason ;  but  to-day,  should 
the  war  end,  the  masses  would  seize  the  man  whose 
hand  reeked  most  with  human  blood,  and  bear  him  on 
their  shoulders  to  the  White  House. 

Should  we  continue  this  war  long  enough,  we  shall 
become  the  Vandals  and  Hessians  the  South  says  we 
are. 

Every  great  achievement  of  civilization  is  in  the  way 
of  war,  and  must  be  abridged.  Konig  of  Germany  has 
given  it  as  his  opinion,  that  distinguished  generalship 
is  inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  the  telegraph:  in 
our  war,  both  sides  are  cutting  down  all  telegraph-lines 
which  they  cannot  hold  under  military  censorship. 

The  freedom  of  the  press  has  been  proved  impossi- 
ble in  time  of  war. 

The  trial  by  jury  —  the  coat  of  mail  which  Character 
has  worn  for  ages  —  is  torn  away. 

The  Habeas-Corpus  writ  —  "  the  high-water  mark  of 
English  liberty  "  —  is  of  arbitrary  application. 

A  short  time  ago  we  were  all  uttering  our  horror 
of  the  prize-ring,  with  its  brutalities.  Now  George 


32  THE  GOLDEN  HOUR. 

Wilkes  announces  that  our  frowning  down  the  P.  R. 
has  crippled  our  military  energies  as  a  nation,  and 
that  it  must  be  restored.  Logic  seconds  his  motion. 

Here  is  Christianity  itself,  the  civilization  of  relig- 
ion: for  its  more  genial  teaching  the  world  gave  up 
the  gods  of  battles,  Jah  and  Jove  with  their  thunder- 
bolts, Mars  with  his  spear,  Odin  with  his  sword.  But 
War  bids  it  recede:  "You  have  heard  that  it  hath 
been  said, '  Thou  shalt  love  thine  enemy,'  but  I,  War, 
say  unto  thee,  '  Kill  thine  enemy."1 

Thus  one  by  one  these  crown-jewels  of  our  Human- 
ity must  be  dimmed  or  exchanged  for  paste. 

War  stands  before  us  to-day  a  fatal  despot,  knowing 
no  law  but  the  passion  of  the  moment,  prostrating  the 
Century  before  the  Hour ;  takes  the  pen  and  plough 
from  our  hand,  and  gives  us  a  sword  ;  melts  types  into 
Lullets  ;  takes  away  the  Golden  Rule,  and  re-establishes 
the  law  of  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth. 

With  a  new,  wild  joy  all  true  hearts  in  this  land 
were  thrilled  when  the  millions  of  the  North  rose  up 
and  declared  to  Slavery,  Here  shall  thy  waves  be 
stayed  !  There  were  many  reasons  for  such  joy  :  first, 
that  there  was  a  North,  when  we  feared  there  was 
none ;  next,  that  the  disease  of  the  country,  which  we 
had  feared  was  chronic,  had  assumed  an  acute  form, 
which  is  always  more  hopeful.  We  were  glad,  because 
we  knew  that  this  war  was  really  the  most  pacific  state 
of  things  which  this  country  had  ever  known.  We 


THE   TWO  EDGES   OF   THE   SWORD.  33 

knew  also  that  a  single  day  of  Slavery  and  its  rule  in 
this  country  witnessed  more  wrong,  violence,  corrup- 
tion, more  actual  war,  than  all  that  civil  war  even 
could  bring ;  (which  conviction  in  my  own  mind,  as 
one  having  lived  all  my  life  in  the  midst  of  or  near  that 
institution,  I  here  declare  unshaken  by  any  disasters  we 
have  encountered.) 

A  gorilla  is  an  admirable  animal,  looked  at  prospec- 
tively  from  the  crocodile  point  of  view  ;  and  so  when  a 
nation  which  had  for  years  been  crawling  in  the  mud 
before  an  insolent  usurper  leaped  to  its  feet,  and  forgot 
in  a  great  moment  the  wretched  prey  for  which  it  had 
crawled,  it  was  an  hour  for  paeans  only.  Every  prin- 
ciple had  been  paid  down  for  outward  unity,  —  a  unity 
preserving  both  hands,  both  feet,  only  to  enter  with 
both  into  hell-fire ;  but  now  a  line  was  graven  on  the 
earth,  and  the  nation  declared  it  would  perish  rather 
than  compromise  again.  The  first  grand  step  was  to 
have  the  nation  committed  to  an  uncompromising  atti- 
tude toward  this  rebellion ;  to  make  the  determination 
to  overcome  it,  at  whatever  physical  cost,  irrevocable. 

So  much  gained,  the  best  method  of  overcoming  the 
rebellion  would  be  arrived  at  by  further  reflection  and 
discussion.  The  war,  in  its  proper  time  and  place,  was 
noble,  because  spontaneous  and  heroic  ;  but  in  this  age 
and  land  it  could  only  be  an  embryonic  phase,  to  pass 
away  before  higher  phases,  which  under  its  quick  heats 
would  speedily  be  developed. 

Every  higher  being  must,  ere  it  is  born  from  the 

2*  C 


34  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR 

egg,  pass  through  preceding  forms.  Every  crab  must 
be  a  trilobite  and  a  lobster  before  it  is  born  a  crab. 
Man  himself  must  first  resemble  the  lower  beings.  As 
these  inferior  shapes  have  pioneered  the  way  for  the 
higher  in  the  earth,  so  do  they  now  in  each  individual 
case.  As  pioneers  they  are  essential ;  but  if  the  higher 
being  forthcoming  shall  retain  any  of  these  inferior 
embryonic  conditions,  he  is  deformed ;  as  when  a  man 
has  a  hare's  lip  or  ape's  hand.  But  every  deformity 
was  right  in  its  place ;  every  lip  is  at  one  period  a 
hare-lip ;  it  is  a  deformity  only  when  retained  where 
a  healthy  development  would  have  gone  beyond  it. 
The  birth  of  a  nation  is  not  different.  We  have 
struggled  by  some  phases  which  allied  us  to  lower 
governments :  we  must  struggle  by  the  war  phase. 
The  war  is  but  the  gorilla  phase  in  our  national  em- 
bryo ;  we  must  see  that  it  does  not  linger  longer 
than  is  needed  to  add  its  contribution  to  the  national 
manhood.  If,  when  the  period  of  purely  human 
power  arrives,  the  sword  remains,  it  were  as  if  claw 
and  fang  remained  when  the  period  of  tooth  and  hand 
arrived. 

Already  there  are  unmistakable  indications  that  the 
mere  military  enthusiasm  in  this  contest  is  cooling, 
whilst  the  anxiety  concerning  the  issue  is  deeper  each 
day  than  the  day  before.  Many  of  our  soldiers  who 
rushed  to  Washington  had  to  be  kept  there  by  (what 
must  be  regarded)  a  forced  decision  of  a  United  States 
judge ;  it  was  easily  seen  that,  if  one  man  could  claim 


THE   TWO  EDGES   OF   THE   SWORD.  35 

the  limit  of  enlistment,  Washington  would  be  left  un- 
defended. There  is  no  longer  any  activity  in  recruiting- 
stations  ;  and,  in  the  West,  recruiting  itinerants  are 
getting  up  revival  meetings  for  the  war.  The  appeals 
of  these  officers  to  the  crowd  resemble  those  of  revi- 
valists imploring  the  imconverted  to  be  saved.  In  the 
same  tones  they  beseech  the  youth  to  "  close  in  with 
the  overtures,"  to  enlist  before  it  shall  be  "  awfully 
too  late."  The  crowd  usually  remains  still,  as  the  de- 
praved too  often  do  in  the  revival  meetings.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  one  or  two  more  "  Shilohs  "  will  bring  a  draft 
upon  these  profoundly  impenitent  young  men. 

In  one  of  these  meetings,  in  Central  Ohio,  I  remem- 
ber a  tremendous  sensation  which  was  produced  by  an 
old  man,  who  arose  and  said  that  he  had  three  sons, 
brave  as  anybody's  sons,  and  he  was  willing  to  sacrifice 
them  for  his  country ;  but  he  desired  to  be  perfectly 
sure  that  they  were  not  to  be  sacrificed  to  human  slav- 
ery, or  to  preserve  it  in  the  land  ;  he  would  not  sac- 
rifice their  nail-pairings  for  that,  or  for  the  Union 
with  that. 


36  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

VI. 

FIGHTING    THE    DEVIL    WITH    FIRE. 

THERE  is  nothing  that  the  Devil  so  likes  as  that  his 
antagonists  should  fight  him  with  fire :  the  rascal 
knows  that  none  can  be  so  much  at  home  where  fire 
is  concerned  as  he. 

The  wise  Book  says,  "  Be  not  overcome  of  evil,  but 
overcome  evil  with  good."  Every  victory  of  evil  over 
evil  leaves  me  as  much  yanquished  as  my  enemy. 
Every  blow  that  gains  me  the  victory  as  a  brute,  loses 
me  the  victory  as  a  man.  My  foe  may  lie  dead  at  my 
feet ;  but  beside  him,  in  the  dust  I  have  made  him  bite, 
lies  my  crown  of  Reason,  shattered.  I  could,  then,  find 
no  wiser  way  of  treating  him  than  this. 

To  begin  on  the  lowest  plane,  we  may  well  ask  our- 
selves, what  advantage  it  will  be  to  us  to  occupy  the 
cities,  islands,  and  beaches  of  the  Southern  coast.  The 
triple-headed  monster  of  Southern  fever  will  drive  us 
away  from  there.  Our  government  has  hitherto  occu- 
pied the  Southern  forts  with  Southerners,  and  even  they 
only  held  them  nominally  in  summer.  Now  our  South- 
erners have  left  us.  If  Southerners  themselves  have 
to  move  away  from  their  coasts  in  summer,  how  long  is 
it  likely  that  men  who  have  gone  South  now  for  the 
first  time  can  live  there  ?  The  sanitary  committee  has 
shown  that  we  have  been  losing  soldiers  simply  by  dis- 


FIGHTING   THE   DEVIL   WITH  FIEE.  37 

ease  at  the  rate  of  twenty-six  regiments  per  annum : 
if  we  hold  the  points  on  the  Southern  coast  now  occu- 
pied by  us,  it  will  be  at  thrice  that  cost. 

Are  we  to  enact  the  part  of  Sisyphus  and  his  stone, 
—  rolling  the  stone  of  conquest  southward  during  one 
half  of  the  year,  to  have  it  roll  back  again  during  the 
other  half? 

Again :  it  is  demonstrable  that  by  any  merely  mili- 
tary victory  (for  that  would  leave  Slavery  undestroyed) 
we  should  be  as  much  conquered  as  the  rebels. 

My  friend,  Mr.  Resist-the-Devil  J.  Browne,  a  descend- 
ant of  one  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  now  a  student  at  Cam- 
bridge, wrote  me  some  time  ago  the  following  account 
of  an  event  in  that  neighborhood  :  — • 

"  Lately,  our  little  neighbor  —  the  village  of  Som- 
erville  —  has  been  subjected  to  a  terrible  ordeal.  Fancy 
the  amazement  of  the  villagers,  on  seeing  a  huge  ana- 
conda marching  leisurely  down  its  main  street !  It 
had,  it  seems,  escaped  from  a  circus  exhibiting  near  the 
village. 

"  Now,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  a  big  snake,  crawling 
through  a  small  village,  is  scarcely  conducive  to  the  re- 
pose of  mind  of  those  resident  therein.  It  is  certain 
that  the  quiet  of  Somerville  was  disturbed ;  indeed, 
the  only  quiet  was  in  the  streets,  which  were  speedily 
deserted,  whilst  in  the  houses  the  liveliest  commotion 
existed.  Doors  and  windows  were  barricaded.  The 
snake  had  all  out  of  doors  to  himself.  At  last  the  vil- 
lage concluded  to  have  a  meeting  ;  which  was  held  out 


38  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

of  various  up-stairs  windows,  the  motions  being  made 
across  streets.  A  man  was  appointed  chairman  on  ac- 
count of  his  high  position  in  society,  —  he  being  at  the 
attic  window  of  a  four-story  house,  —  and  presently  a 
motion  proceeded  from  the  dormitory  of  an  adjacent 
cottage,  that  the  male  residents  who  had  fire-arms 
should  take  them  and  go  forth  to  pursue  this  enemy 
of  the  commonwealth  of  Somerville.  The  motion  was 
put  to  the  various  windows  by  the  chairman  in  the 
attic,  and  carried.  The  men  buckled  on  their  armor, 
and  went  forth.  When  they  got  toward  the  outskirts 
of  the  village,  they  saw  his  royal  anacondaship  snoozing 
in  a  fence  corner.  When  the  monster  saw  them,  he 
crawled  off,  and  hid  himself  under  a  barn. 

"  The  heroes  returned  to  their  homes,  flushed  with 
victory,  —  Veni,  vidi,  vici,  in  every  eye  ;  they  had  pur- 
sued the  foe,  and  he  had  fled  before  them  ignominiously, 
the  very  Floyd  of  anacondas.  '  Unbar  your  doors,  ye 
noble  matrons  of  Somerville,'  they  cried ;  '  the  victory 
of  your  sons  is  complete.'  But  one  timid  lady  asked 
where  the  anaconda  was.  '  Under  Mr.  Smith's  barn,' 
was  the  reply.  Then  this  lady  inquired  modestly,  '  But 
may  not  a  snake  that  is  under  a  barn  come  out  from 
under  a  barn  ? '  '  Sure  enough  ! '  '  Sure  enough  ! ' 
echoed  from  window  after  window  ;  and  the  lustre  of 
victory  was  gone.  The  more  it  was  thought  of,  the 
more  it  appeared  that  the  anaconda  was  even  more 
formidable  concealed  under  the  barn  than  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  street.  The  young  men  watched  around  the 


FIGHTING  THE   DEVIL   WITH   FIRE.  39 

barn  till  nightfall;  the  snake  did  not  budge.  They 
repaired,  heavy-hearted,  to  their  homes.  Alas !  there 
was  little  rest  in  Somerville  that  night.  All  were 
sure  they  heard  the  snake  trying  their  window-panes  ; 
each  was  sure  it  was  lying  over  the  roof  of  his  or  her 
house.  The  morning  came  on  aching  eyes.  None 
wished  to  go  out  of  the  door,  sure  that  the  snake  was 
waiting  to  drop  straight  down  from  roof  or  tree  on  their 
heads. 

"  Day  succeeded  day,  and  that  snake,  snugly  disposed 
under  the  barn,  kept  the  whole  village  vanquished. 
People  began  to  desert  Somerville :  expiring  leases 
in  that  fated  village  were  not  renewed.  Somerville 
began  to  lose  its  reputation  as  a  desirable  place  of  res- 
idence. Real  estate  began  to  suffer.  People  went 
not  through,  but  around  that  village  :  cars  did  not  stop 
at  its  ticket-office.  The  students  at  Cambridge  used 
to  take  morning  walks  toward  Somerville  :  now,  their 
walks  were  in  a  precisely  opposite  direction.  In  short, 
there  was  a  prospect  that  the  whole  population  would 
soon  have  to  be  taken  into  the  Lunatic  Asylum  of  that 
devoted  village. 

"  At  this  juncture,  a  gentleman  returned  from  a  jour- 
ney to  his  home  there,  and,  hearing  the  trouble,  killed 
a  pig  and  placed  it  a  rod  from  the  barn  ;  then  he  took 
his  gun  and  got  on  top  of  the  barn.  With  the  ancient 
instinct  of  such  devils  to  rush  into  swine,  the  snake 
soon  made  for  the  slaughtered  animal.  Then  this  man 
killed  the  snake. 


40  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

"It  is  said  that  the  circus-manager  rushed  up  and 
began  an  argument  to  show  that  it  was  a  constitutional 
anaconda  ;  but  the  man  declared  that  his  gun  was  also 
constitutionally  a  gun,  and  fired  away. 

"  Who  the  man  that  killed  the  snake  was,  I  have 
not  yet  learned :  I  have  discovered,  however,  that  he  is 
not  a  member  of  the  present  Administration." 

Does  a  purely  military  victory  contemplate,  or  can  it 
effect,  anything  beyond  driving  the  snake  under  the 
barn  ?  "  But,"  one  may  say,  "  having  got  it  under  a 
barn,  we  can  keep  it  there."  Certainly :  and  if  that 
is  what  life  is  given  for,  —  to  sit  beside  barns,  watching 
snakes, — then  it  is  all  right;  but  if  any  member  of 
the  National  Barn  Guard,  or  of  the  500th  regiment  of 
Snake-watchers  of  the  future,  should  consider  "  the  sit- 
uation "  in  the  light  of  certain  work  he  may  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  accomplishing,  he  may  conclude  that 
the  snake  is  holding  him,  as  much  as  he  holds  the 
snake. 

When  America  has  to  swerve  from  the  orbit  of  her 
destiny  to  stand  guarding  eight  hundred  thousand 
square  miles  of  her  territory  from  the  ravages  of  rebel- 
lion ;  when  she  has  to  hold  her  Union  by  military  force  ; 
when  for  this  end  our  children  must  be  turned  aside 
from  the  noble  aims  fostered  by  free  institutions  and 
the  arts  of  peace,  drafted  to  swell  and  preserve  the  vast 
standing  army  which  such  a  state  of  things  would  re- 
quire, —  then  America,  degraded  into  a  military  nation, 


FIGHTING   THE  DEVIL   WITH   FIRE.  41 

would  be  overcome  of  evil.  Her  victory  would  fetter 
most  of  all  her  own  limbs. 

Even  trade  could  not  stand  such  a  condition.  The 
Northwest  needs  the  Mississippi  River,  but  it  does  not 
wish  to  sit,  forever,  five  hundred  thousand  strong,  on 
the  banks  of  that  stream,  to  see  that  it  does  n't  flow 
away  again  into  a  foreign  land.  Trade  can  use  the 
river  only  by  being  able  to  leave  it,  and  go  home  and 
trade  in  full  faith  that  this  river  will  remain  loyal. 

It  is  this  vanquished  victory  alone  which  the  sword 
can  by  any  possibility  win  for  us. 

Has  the  sword  ever  done  any  but  a  partial  and 
patched  work  ?  In  our  American  Revolution  against 
England,  war  was  declared  as  justly  and  prosecuted  as 
successfully  as  ever  before  or  since  in  the  history  of  the 
world ;  but  our  difficulties  to-day  prove  that  the  sword 
did  not  do  the  work  then  assigned  it  cleanly.  The 
sword  had  conquered  victory  and  a  forced  peace  ;  but 
then  it  had  to  hold  them  ;  in  gaining  colonial  indepen- 
dence thus  it  had  made  a  giant  foe,  who,  it  knew,  would 
make  other  attempts  at  subjugation.  So  the  Colonies, 
in  order  to  combine  against  any  possible  attack  from  a 
foreign  usurper,  must  surrender  to  an  internal  usurper. 
The  Union  was  formed  for  the  common  defence  ;  it  was 
more  a  military  than  a  civil  measure.  It  had  to  be 
made  at  once.  The  rights  of  man  were  compromised 
for  the  emergency ;  for  all  the  States  must  combine, 
whatever  seeds  of  future  disunion  they  might  bring 
with  them.  "We  see  to-day  that  this  overswift  formation 


42  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

which  the  revolutionary  method,  adopted  by  our  fathers, 
compelled,  illustrates  ouce  more  the  infallible  law  that 
they  who  take  to  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the  sword. 


VII. 

LIBERTY'S    LEGITIMATE    WEAPON. 

A  PANTHER  can  slay  seven  men,  if  in  the  encounter 
the  men  have  only  the  weapons  of  the  panther :  tooth  to 
tooth,  claw  to  claw,  the  men  are  inferior.  But  let  one 
man  encounter  the  panther,  armed  with  his  superiority 
to  the  panther, — let  him  bear  in  his  hand  his  chemistry 
and  art,  in  the  fire-arm  which  the  panther  cannot  invent 
or  use,  and  he  can  slay  the  panther. 

Slavery  having  challenged  Liberty,  Liberty  has  been 
unwise  enough  to  select  Slavery's  own  weapons.  But 
with  these  weapons  Liberty's  apparent  victories  will  be 
defeats  ;  for  though  the  panther  be  driven  into  its  den, 
to  hold  it  there  would  be  the  subversion  of  this  govern- 
ment, i.  e.  its  change  into  a  government  of  military 
force.  But  let  her  be  armed  with  her  superiority  to 
Slavery,  and  she  is  irresistible. 

The  only  legitimate  weapon  of  Liberty  is  —  LIBERTY. 

It  is  doubtful  if  the  nation  at  large  will  be  able  to 
see  how  a  bold,  unconditional  decree  of  emancipation 


LIBERTY'S   LEGITIMATE   WEAPON.  43 

•would  speedily  and  thoroughly  suppress  this  rebellion. 
God  always  allows  some  margin  for  human  magnanim- 
ity. If  this  nation  saw  success  in  such  a  measure,  it 
would  enact  it ;  so  would  any  herd  of  cattle.  Room  is 
allowed  man  for  the  play  of  motives  higher  than  policy ; 
his  highest  success  comes  only  when  he  seeks  first  the 
kingdom  of  justice,  and  then  finds  that  all  other  advan- 
tages are  added  thereunto.  "  Honesty,"  says  Whately, 
"  is  indeed  the  best  policy  ;  but  no  honest  man  ever 
acted  on  that  principle."  Indeed,  it  takes  an  honest 
man  to  find  out  such  policy ;  those  see  clearly  how 
emancipation  would  end  the  war  forever,  who  would 
emancipate  in  any  case,  because  it  is  right.  Yet  prob- 
abilities can  be  shown  in  the  direction  of  our  method, 
which  are  far  stronger  than  any  indicating  that  war 
can  win  us  even  a  military  victory  over  the  rebellion  ; 
probabilities  more  numerous  and  sufficient  than  those 
on  which  human  beings  act  in  a  majority  of  cases. 

There  is  a  point  in  the  South  by  touching  which 
the  entire  military  power  of  the  South  is  paralyzed. 
Nat  Turner  touched  that  point,  and,  with  fifty  negroes 
behind  him,  held  the  entire  State  of  Virginia  as  if 
stricken  by  catalepsy  for  five  weeks.  John  Brown 
touched  it,  and,  with  twenty-one  men,  so  held  Virginia 
that,  had  he  had  a  fourth  of  McClellan's  army,  he  could 
in  one  month  have  occupied  the  entire  State.  It  be- 
came a  proverb,  that  John  Brown  had  demonstrated  the 
weakness  of  Slavery.  This  huge  machinery  of  armies 
and  numbers  is  a  barbarism ;  it  is  as  if  we  built  great 


44  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

Roman  aqueducts,  ignoring  the  modern  discovery  of 
the  water-level,  which  makes  a  hydrant  in  one's  yard 
answer  the  same  purpose,  or  a  better.  It  is  a  rude- 
ness far  behind  our  civilization  to  think  that  numbers 
can  conquer  for  us:  numbers  are  as  weak  as  they 
are  strong.  We  are  beyond  that  in  our  municipal 
governments.  It  is  estimated  that  twenty  policemen 
can  conquer  and  disperse  the  largest  riot  or  tumult 
that  could  occur  in  New  York.  Why  ?  Because  each 
policeman  has  the  moral  power  of  the  nation  at  his 
back,  whilst  the  rioters  are  mere  bits  of  chaos.  We 
do  not  have  to  set  one  half  of  a  city  to  keep  the 
other  half  in  order.  I  have  seen  a  half-dozen  burly 
ruffians  led  to  prison  by  a  man  weaker  than  either 
of  them,  but  who  had  an  IDEA  symboled  in  the  star 
on  his  breast,  whilst  the  ruffians  had  none.  When 
our  country  has  an  idea  in  this  war,  it  need  only 
send  South  a  moderate  police  force.  Nat  Turner 
and  John  Brown,  with  stars  out  of  heaven  on  their 
breasts,  holding  commissions  from  Almighty  God  to 
put  down  the  organic  disorder  in  the  South,  proved 
that  Slavery  cannot  stir  but  as  Freedom  permits  it; 
but  McClellan,  with  700,000  men  under  him  for  six 
months,  proved  that  men  unarmed  with  ideas  are  as 
unable  to  cope  with  the  kindled  ferocity  of  wrong, 
as  they  are  without  guns  to  cope  with  half  their  num- 
ber of  tigers.  In  a  fearful  sense  our  men  are  yet 
unarmed. 

It  is  a  common  phrase  with  many  of  those  who  evi- 


LIBERTY'S   LEGITIMATE   WEAPON.  45 

dently  think  that  the  Union  would  be  nothing  without 
Slavery,  that  an  edict  of  emancipation  would  not  reach 
or  free  a  single  slave,  and,  to  use  a  favorite  phrase 
with  certain  journals,  "  would  not  be  worth  the  paper 
upon  which  it  should  be  written."  I  observe,  how- 
ever, that  these  always  end  their  arguments  by  saying, 
For  God's  sake,  do  not  try  it !  It  is  quite  remarkable 
how  nervous  they  are,  lest  an  edict  should  be  put  forth 
which  could  have  no  effect  whatever. 

Have  we  considered  well  what  would  be  the  practical 
bearing  if  our  government  should  declare  every  slave 
free  ?  Slavery  would  by  this  stroke  of  the  pen  be  ex- 
posed to  the  antislavery  feeling  of  the  world.  If  John 
Brown  had  a  successor,  he  would  march  South  under 
protection  of  the  flag  under  which  the  old  captain  was 
hung.  White  and  black  crusaders  would  rise  in  Can- 
ada, Kansas,  Ohio,  Hayti,  New  England,  following  new 
hermit-leaders  to  rescue  the  holy  places  of  humanity. 
Hayti  would  no  longer  need  beg  laborers  to  come  to  her 
shores,  and  pay  them  for  coming :  she  need  only  send 
her  ships  to  cruise  near  the  inlets  and  creeks  of  the 
Southern  coast,  and  pick  them  up  as  they  should 
escape. 

It  is  not  to  the  point,  observe,  to  say  that  such  an 
edict  would  not  at  once  free  the  slaves  practically ;  it 
would  practically  do  a  better  thing,  —  it  would  recall  to 
his  home,  where  he  ought  to  be,  every  soldier  now  in 
arms  against  the  United  States.  It  is  manifest  that  the 
South  would  not  be  able  to  resist  the  antislavery  cru- 


46  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

sade  of  the  world,  guarding  its  slaves  from  escape,  and 
at  the  same  time  leave  its  homes  to  assassinate  the  lib- 
erties of  the  United  States.  All  that  a  Southerner  hath 
will  he  give  for  his  slave  ;  and  to  that  cord  drawing 
him  home  would  be  added  that  panic  which  a  whisper 
of  insurrection  can  raise  in  that  section  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  it  drives  all  before  it.  In  a  single  month 
there  would  be  a  distribution  of  all  the  forces  of  the 
Confederacy  into  various  Home  Guards. 

Perhaps  I  am  more  impressed  with  the  conviction  of 
the  immediate  potency  of  emancipation  than  persons 
reared  in  the  North.  I  have  seen  the  pallor  which  a 
whisper  can  bring  upon  the  cheeks  of  hundreds.  I 
know  that  a  casual  rumor  has  again  and  again  deprived 
whole  towns  of  a  week's  sleep.  Negro  insurrection  is 
the  name  for  every  horror,  simply  because  it  is  one  of 
which  the  Southerners  know  nothing.  It  is  doubtful 
whether,  in  all  the  insurrections  in  the  South  for  a  hun- 
dred years  put  together,  five  hundred  slaves  have  been 
in  actual  insubordination.  The  present  generation  has 
seen  nothing  of  the  kind.  That  is  the  very  reason  why 
there  is  such  a  horror  and  panic  about  it :  it  is  a  vague, 
mysterious,  and  unknown  evil.  As  far  as  the  shudder 
about  "  covering  the  South  with  the  horrors  of  insur- 
rection "  is  real,  and  not  a  traitorous  pretence,  it  may 
be  met  by  the  fact  that  the  history  of  insurrection 
throughout  the  world  shows  that  in  every  case  the  bar- 
barity was  chiefly  on  the  part  of  the  whites,  and  always 
provoked  by  them.  In  every  case,  twenty  blacks  have 


LIBERTY'S  LEGITIMATE   WEAPON.  47 

been  butchered  to  one  white.  Of  all  the  races  now  on 
earth,  there  is  none  so  little  cruel,  so  little  bloodthirsty, 
as  the  negro ;  that  being  why  it  has  been  for  so 
many  ages  the  enslaved  race.  The  only  dread  we 
could  have  hi  an  immediate  emancipation  of  this  race 
is,  that  the  Confederate  forces  would  rush  home  to  mas- 
sacre their  negroes.  Doubtless  they  would  ask  the 
United  States  for  a  few  months'  truce  for  that  purpose, 
—  and  as  the  family  of  fools  is  yet  quite  large  and  re- 
spectable, and  most  of  them  have  managed  to  become 
generals  in  our  army,  there  would  be  danger  that  our 
courteous  McClellans,  Hallecks,  <fec.  would  be  "  quiet " 
until  the  massacre  should  take  place.  But  when  we  are 
up  to  such  a  master-stroke  of  justice,  we  shall  be  up  to 
stripping  the  epaulets  from  negro-hounds  and  placing 
them  on  the  shoulders  of  men.  We  should  recognize 
in  that  call  for  a  truce,  which  would  surely  come,  God's 
invitation  for  us  to  march  into  the  South  the  protectors 
of  black  and  white,  —  an  army  of  saviours,  not  of  de- 
stroyers, —  our  glorious  task  to  see  that  the  transition- 
pangs  of  the  South  were  safely  passed,  and  her  people 
born  into  light  and  liberty. 

Let  none  doubt  that  the  slave  is  ready  to  stir  in  a 
way  which  will  paralyze  the  armies  of  the  South,  as 
soon  as  he  hears  the  true  voice.  I  once  asked  a  slave 
why  it  was  that  he  and  others  did  not  escape :  he 
replied,  "  Because,  after  getting  out  of  the  slave-holding 
States,  we  must  either  drive  under  or  fly  over  all  the 
slave-hating  States  from  here  to  Canada."  Let  Canada 


48  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

be  carried  wherever  our  flag  goes  ;  nay,  let  every  slave 
be  empowered  and  authorized  to  make  the  spot  on 
which  he  stands  Canada. 

The  South  has  not  a  misgiving  that  her  slaves  are 
not  generally  asleep  to  these  issues.  I  have  heard  of  a 
Southerner  who,  having  a  Northern  visitor  before  whom 
he  was  showing  off  Slavery  in  clean  linen,  finally 
alleged  that  his  slaves  were  so  happy  that  nothing  could 
induce  them  to  accept  their  freedom.  To  make  the 
experiment  perfect,  he,  in  the  presence  of  the  Northern 
man,  offered  them  their  freedom  if  they  desired  to 
leave  him.  Every  one  of  them  said  he  would  accept 
freedom.  Whereupon  the  master  swore  at  them  as 
fools  who  did  not  know  what  was  good  for  them, 
ordered  them  to  their  work,  and  in  future  exhibitions 
before  Yankees  never  attempted  the  manumission-trick. 
Fortunately  for  him,  the  Yankee  had  already  taken 
South-side  views  of  the  institution. 

When  John  C.  Fremont  was  a  candidate  for  the 
Presidency  there  was  no  portion  of  the  South  where 
the  watchword  "  Freedom  and  Fremont "  was  not  heard 
at  midnight.  The  South  was  on  the  verge  of  panic. 
Lately,  when  that  same  man  was  in  the  Western  Depart- 
ment, that  cry  from  the  slaves  was  echoed  from  planta- 
tion to  plantation  all  along  the  Mississippi,  Tennessee, 
and  Red  Rivers  ;  and  so  frequent  was  it  at  last,  that  the 
apprehension  reached  the  semi-loyal  of  the  Tennessee 
and  Kentucky  border,  who  acted  up  through  all  the 
shades  of  disloyalty  and  loyalty,  until  the  panic  of  rebels 


LIBERTY'S  LEGITIMATE   WEAPON.  49 

was  felt  at  the  Capitol,  and  removed  the  Warrior  of  Lib- 
erty from  his  command. 

By  that  removal,  and  by  the  infamous  proclamations 
and  wanton  renditions  by  which  our  officers  have  hu- 
miliated us  even  more  than  by  their  wretched  in- 
competency,  we  have  doubtless  alienated  these  negroes 
from  us.  So  that  our  task,  at  first  easy,  is  now  difficult. 
But  it  is  certain  that  we  need  only  let  the  slaves  along 
the  border  know  our  good  faith,  to  have  the  tidings 
flash  through  the  South  all  along  the  lines  of  nature's 
telegraph ;  the  way  to  do  this,  is  to  free  the  slaves  of 
the  Border  States  immediately. 

When  I  first  came  North,  I  used  to  maintain  stoutly, 
with  my  companions,  that  the  slaves  did  not  desire 
freedom.  More  than  twenty  years  had  I  lived  amongst 
those  dumb  creatures,  never  dreaming  that  any  one 
of  them  had  a  thought  of  freedom.  But  when  I  re- 
turned South  I  found  that  they  not  only  knew,  what 
few  whites  knew,  that  I  was  antislavery,  but  they  were 
eager  to  consult  me  as  to  how  they  might  escape. 
All  this  took  me  by  surprise ;  I  had  never  hinted  free- 
dom to  one  of  them,  and  it  was  in  one  of  the  obscur- 
est parts  of  Virginia,  where  Northerners  never  came  ; 
then  I  saw,  for  the  first  time,  that  the  whole  social 
system  of  the  South  is  undermined. 

The  South  does  not  as  yet  fully  comprehend  her 
own  weakness.  But  she  knows  that  every  warrior 
has  his  vulnerable  heel.  Our  only  danger  is,  that, 
before  our  slow  Northmen  are  ready  to  act,  the 

3  i> 


50  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

* 

South  will  suspect  this  her  danger,  and  will  cover  it 
up  with  a  decree  of  emancipation  for  all  able-bodied 
men  who  will  bear  arms  for  the  Confederacy.  That 
would  free  nearly  500,000  negro  men,  which  would 
be  a  cheap*  price  to  pay  for  a  victory  over  the  North, 
which  would  give  them  power  to  recover  the  emanci- 
pated half-million  by  reopening  the  slave-trade,  and 
would  not  impair  Slavery  at  all.  (For  I  do  not  believe 
the  South  would  give  up  Slavery  for  anything !)  The 
children,  by  the  codes  of  all  slave  states,  follow  the  con- 
dition of  the  mother,  and  such  a  decree  would  manumit 
no  women. 

No  bid  that  we  could  then  make  for  these  negroes 
would  bring  them  to  our  side  ;  for  they  would  then 
be  under  military  rule,  and  animated  by  the  spirit  of 
the  contest.  The  power  that  is  nearest  is  that  which 
they  have  most  faith  in  ;  a  distant,  less  imposing  power 
might  double  the  offer  with  no  effect. 

There  is  one  man  in  the  South  who  has  his  eye 
steadily  on  the  watch  in  this  direction.  Jefferson  Davis 
has  no  faith  whatever  in  the  fondness  of  the  negro  for 
his  condition. 

A  few  years  ago  an  artist  of  Philadelphia  was  en- 
gaged by  the  State  of  South  Carolina  to  prepare  some 
national  emblematic  picture  for  her  State-House.  Jef- 
ferson Davis  was  requested  to  act  with  the  South  Caro- 
lina committee  in  criticising  the  studies  for  this  design. 
The  first  sketch  brought  in  by  the  artist  was  a  design 
representing  the  North  by  various  mechanic  imple- 


LIBERTY'S   LEGITIMATE   WEAPON.  51 

ments,  the  "West  by  something  else,  whilst  the  South 
was  represented  by  various  things,  the  centrepiece, 
however,  being  a  cotton-bale  with  a  negro  upon  it, 
fast  asleep.  When  Jeff  saw  it  he  said,  "  Gentlemen, 
this  will  never  do  :  what  will  become  of  the  South 
when  that  negro  wakes  up  ?  " 

The  first  blast  from  the  trump  of  universal  Freedom 
will  reveal  to  Jeff  and  his  Confederates  that  the  negro 
has  already  waked  up ;  also,  which  is  more  important, 
that  the  North  is  waked  up ;  then  will  our  army  go 
marching  on  to  bloodless  victory,  —  trampling  scourges, 
not  men,  breaking  fetters,  not  hearts. 

Ah,  what  tongue  can  celebrate  a  victory  so  glorious; 
a  victory  which  would  restore  to  our  firesides  the  lost 
links  of  their  circles ;  which  would  touch  the  blighted 
lands  of  the  South  as  by  a  magic  wand,  until  its  desert 
should  rejoice  and  blossom  as  the  rose  ;  which  should 
clasp  the  broken  arch  between  North  and  South  with 
the  infrangible  keystone,  eternal  Justice ! 


52  THE   GOLDEN   IIOUK. 

VIII. 

THE    GRADUAL    PLAN. 

A  BOHEMIAN  story  relates,  that  Horace  Greeley  was 
lately  travelling  on  a  steamer,  when  a  High-Church 
Episcopalian  minister,  who  was  on  board,  became  much 
exercised  concerning  his  (Greeley's)  soul.  At  length 
this  clergyman  approached  H.  G.,  and,  in  a  solemn 
voice,  said,  "  Friend,  may  I  inquire  if  you  have  ever 
been  baptized  ?  "  "  Well,  no,"  replied  Greeley,  "  not 
exactly ;  but  I  've  been  vaccinated." 

Gradual  emancipation  has  about  as  much  to  do  with 
putting  down  this  rebellion  through  Slavery,  as  vacci- 
nation has  with  baptism. 

The  war  power  alone  gives  the  President  the  right 
even  to  touch  Slavery  in  the  States  with  his  little 
finger,  as  he  has  done ;  and  the  military  advantage 
which  he  sees  and  assigns  as  a  reason  for  his  late 
proposition  to  co-operate  in  emancipation  with  slave 
States,  is  sufficient  to  justify  abolition  by  the  war  power. 

It  is  thus  one  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  s  guns ; 
and  to  make  it  gradual  would  be  like  firing  off  a  gun 
a  little  at  a  time,  —  if  that  were  possible. 

So  far  as  emancipation  will  help  us  to  crush  this 
rebellion,  no  gradual  plan  which  was  ever  conceived 
and  tried  can  do  us  the  least  good.  Any  measure 
which  leaves  the  slave  bound  at  all  to  his  Southern 


THE   GRADUAL   PLAN.  53 

master,  keeps  him  there  adding  to  the  wealth  and 
support  and  military  power  of  the  hostile  section. 
And  if  four  millions  of  these  laborers  remain  to  furnish 
these  supplies  to  the  enemy,  the  South  will  be  able  to 
keep  in  the  field  all  their  white  population,  and,  what- 
ever advantages  we  may  gain,  their  rebellion  will  sur- 
vive the  youngest  person  in  this  nation. 

But,  looking  at  the  matter  apart  from  the  national 
emergency,  and  simply  as  a  question  of  political  econo- 
my, to  say  that  gradual  emancipation  is  better  for  all 
is  to  throw  away  all  the  light  of  experience  in  this 
matter.  Negro  slaves  have  within  this  century  been 
emancipated  in  seven  or  eight  countries.  And  if  there 
is  one  thing  in  which  all  reports  agree,  it  is,  that 
wherever  the  thing  was  done  in  any  half  way,  the  coun- 
try suffered  in  exports  and  imports ;  wherever  it  was 
done  cleanly,  immediately,  and  unconditionally,  the 
country  never  failed  to  reap  a  full  and  immediate 
reward.  Whilst  the  island  of  Jamaica,  under  the  grad- 
ual plan,  groaned  under  its  losses,  the  adjacent  islands 
which  made  a  clean  sweep  of  Slavery  saw  their  five 
talents  at  once  swell  to  ten.  Russia  is  now  undergoing 
the  same  experience  with  its  serfs,  who,  kept  in  limbo 
between  Slavery  and  Liberty,  have  proved  such  a  bur- 
den that  the  taskmasters  are  crying  out  to  the  Czar  to 
have  them  given  equal  rights  or  none  at  all. 

HOMER  NODDING.  I  allude  to  the  Rev.  Homer 
Wilbur,  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  Many  a  noble  refrain 
of  freedom,  which  lingers  in  our  hearts  in  the  watches 


54  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

of  the  night,  which  greets  the  rising  day,  must  be  traced 
to  this  Homer ;  but  lately  it  would  seem  that  his  Muse 
threatens  to  reverse  the  story  of  Undine,  and  gradually 
lose  her  soul.  "What  else  can  be  said  concerning  his 
Polliwog  fable  ?  This  fable  compares  those  who  would 
declare  Slavery  at  an  end,  so  far  as  this  government 
is  concerned,  to  those  philotadpoles  who,  impatient  at 
the  slow  growth  by  which  Nature  leads  polliwog  to 
frog,  insisted  on  cutting  off  the  tails  of  the  former. 
After  this  Homer  writes :  "  I  would  do  nothing  hastily 
or  vindictively,  nor  presume  to  jog  the  elbow  of  Provi- 
dence. No  desperate  measures  for  me  till  we  are  sure' 
that  all  others  are  hopeless, — flectere  si  nequeo  SUPE- 
BOS,  Acheronta  movebo" 

In  other  words,  the  slaughter  at  Manasses,  Ball's 
Bluff,  Winchester,  Shiloh,  are  mild  measures ;  these 
are  appeals  to  the  gods ;  but  to  release  millions  from 
dungeons,  fetters,  auction-blocks,  and  raise  them  to  life, 
this  is  a  "  desperate  measure,"  this  is  to  "  move  hell  "  ! 

Is  it  possible  that  any  cataract  should  have  been  so 
far  formed  over  this  once  clear  eye,  that  it  now  sees  a 
state  of  Slavery  to  be  a  normal  phase  in  the  condition 
of  human  beings  ?  0  Homer,  once  you  sang  as  if  you 
saw  that  Slavery,  and  not  emancipation,  was  the  mur- 
derous lopping  off  of  the  poor  polliwog's  tail ! 

So  far  as  the  principle, 

"From  lower  to  the  higher  next, 
Not  to  the  top,  is  Nature's  text, 

is  concerned,  it  is  certainly  true.     Only,  to  apply  it  in 


THE   GRADUAL   PLAN.  55 

the  present  case  as  against  immediate  emancipation  gives 
an  odd  suggestion  of  a  Sleepy  Hollow  somewhere  near 
Cambridge.  Does  Homer  remember  nothing  of  the 
long  and  fearful  years  in  which  we  have  gone  —  God 
knows  how  wearily  and  slowly  —  from  step  to  step  up 
to  this  our  Commencement-Day  ?  To  speak  of  emanci- 
pation now  as  hasty,  or  a  leap  over  essential  steps,  is  as 
if  Homer  should  go  to  the  next  Senior  who,  having 
made  his  graduation  speech,  at  the  end  of  a  full  Col- 
lege course,  is  about  to  receive  his  diploma,  and  say : 
"  My  dear  young  man,  festina  lente  !  You  must  n't 
think  of  a  diploma  until  you  have  been  here  four 
years  yet.  Come  over,  —  our  Ollendorf  class  meets 
at  ten  now." 

Or  here,  say,  is  an  old  tree  which  has  been  slowly 
rotting,  until  a  breath  only  may  bring  it  to  the  earth  ; 
now,  merely  because  it  falls  with  a  crash,  and  the 
splinters  fly,  shall  we  accuse  the  blithe  breeze  which 
did  the  work  of  being  a  revolutionary  tornado,  moving 
Acheron  ? 

Let  us  trust  that  Providence  will  "  presume  to  jog 
the  elbow "  of  Homer,  that  he  may  no  longer  nod 
whilst  the  first  page  in  God's  account  with  America 
is  closing,  and  when  it  is  plain  that  upon  the  virtue 
and  earnestness  of  the  current  hour  it  must  depend 
whether  there  shall  be  any  balance  in  favor  of  this 
nation  to  be  carried  to  the  fresh  page,  or  to  entitle 
it  to  further  trust. 


56  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

IX. 

WAR   FOR    THE    UNION. 

WE  are  told,  with  a  frequency  and  vehemence  which 
so  simple  a  proposition  could  scarcely  be  supposed  to 
evoke,  that  "  this  is  a  war  for  the  Union."  We  can 
account  for  the  vehemence  by  the  supposition  that  this 
sentence  has  a  reverse  side,  which  is,  that  "  this  is  not 
a  war  for  emancipation." 

We  do  not  need  a  war  for  emancipation.  Slavery 
is  the  creature  of  positive  law  ;  it  is  maintainable  only 
by  systematic  force.  Only  withdraw  the  positive  sup- 
ports of  Slavery,  —  only  let  the  government  declare 
that  IT  will  henceforth  ignore  the  relation  of  master 
and  slave, — and  Slavery  falls  by  its  own  weight. 

But  has  not  this  idea  of  a  "  war  for  the  Union  "  its 
comic  side?  I  once  knew  of  a  father's  whipping  his 
child  because  the  child  did  not  love  him  so  well  as 
it  did  its  nurse,  and  it  seemed  to  me  an  odd  way  to 
cultivate  filial  affection  ;  but  is  it  not  so  that  we  are 
recovering  unity  with  the  South  ?  If  that  Union  had 
not  been  already  dead,  surely  we  have  sent  artillery 
enough  .down  there  to  have  killed  it  several  times. 
Whether  we  shall  succeed  with  our  arms  or  not,  it 
would  be  a  corpse  that  we  conquered,  galvanize  it  as 
we  might.  My  theory  of  General  McClellan  is,  that 
he  has  just  sense  enough  to  see  that,  the  object  as- 


WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  57 

signed  being  to  restore  the  Union,  the  more  he  should 
fight,  the  less  Union  he  would  have.  He  had  proba- 
bly concluded  that  harmony  was  more  likely  to  come 
by  his  sitting  on  the  Potomac  and  waiting  for  it  to 
turn  up  ;  and  he  might  have  been  sitting  there  still 
if  the  country  had  not  been  of  a  different  opinion. 

Andy  Johnson  goes  to  Tennessee,  and  pleads  with 
that  people  to  see  that  the  old  Union  is  re-established 
in  that  State,  and  his  leading  argument  to  them  is 
that  Slavery,  now  in  a  precarious  condition,  will  there- 
by be  secured  more  firmly  than  ever.  In  the  present 
representative  position  of  Mr.  Johnson,  we  must  con- 
clude that  our  government  would  be  only  too  happy 
to  clasp  the  broken  arch  with  the  old  keystone  which 
has  just  crumbled.  But  there  are  two  classes  in  this 
country,  either  of  which  holds  the  balance  of  power, 
which  will  take  care  that  no  such  reunion  takes  place. 
One  class  resides  in  the  Cotton  States.  The  Cab- 
inet need  never  hold  any  love-feasts  for  Jeff  and  his 
companions.  In  Ireland,  where  the  priests  pray  over 
the  little  fields  of  the  peasantry  to  assist  their  fertil- 
ity, a  priest  once  came  to  a  particularly  barren  and 
hard-looking  patch  of  ground,  and  said,  "  Brethren, 
there 's  no  use  in  praying  here  ;  this  needs  manure." 
I  think  when  Father  Abraham  looks  over  the  fence 
of  the  Cotton  States,  if  he  ever  does,  he  will  ceme  to 
a  similar  conclusion  about  the  efficacy  of  pardoning 
grace.  The  other  class  which,  should  the  South  sub- 
mit to-morrow,  would  prevent  any  return  to  the  old 

3* 


58  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR 

Union,  is  the  class  of  honest  freemen  throughout  the 
land.  The  battle  of  Armageddon  is  one  that  never 
ceases.  Let  the  Cabinets  at  Washington  and  Richmond 
join  again  around  the  communion-table,  with  the  blood 
of  the  Christ  crucified  between  them  upon  it,  —  and 
the  old  siege  of  Liberty  against  the  Union,  which 
has  been  raised  for  a  moment,  begins  again.  Garrison, 
the  old  standard-bearer,  will  unfurl  his  banner  of  Dis- 
union, which  he  keeps  only  tucked  away  in  the  Lib- 
erator room,  as  Bennett  of  the  Herald  keeps  the  Con- 
federate flag.  The  clear  bugle  of  Phillips  sounds  the 
old  martial  call  again.  And  all  along  the  sky  sleep- 
ing thunders  will  awaken,  and  ten  thousand  trumpets 
proclaim  that  the  siege  against  the  ancient  wrong  is 
renewed,  —  the  siege  whose  arrows  are  thoughts,  whose 
shells  are  fiery  inspirations  of  truth,  whose  sword  is 
the  Spirit  of  a  just  God.  All  this  will  go  on  until  the 
ballot-box  is  conquered  again,  and  some  such  man  as 
Wendell  Phillips  is  elected  President.  Then  another 
Sumter  gun  will  be  heard.  Then  will  come  the  war 
of  which  the  present  is  but  a  picket  skirmish.  John 
Brown  will  be  commanding  general  of  all  our  forces 
then ;  and  all  will  not  be  quiet  on  the  Potomac.  His 
soul  will  go  marching  on ;  't  is  a  way  it  has. 

For  I  fear  that  over  the  eye  of  this  nation  Slavery 
has  gradually  formed  a  hard  cataract,  so  that  it  can- 
not see  the  peace  and  glory  which  are  an  arm's-length 
before  it,  —  a  cataract  which  only  the  painful  surgery 
of  the  sword  can  remove.  If  it  be  so,  we  can  only 


WAR   FOB   THE   UNION.  59 

say,  —  Bleed,  poor  country !  Let  thy  young  men  be 
choked  with  their  blood  ;  let  the  pale  horse  trample 
loving  hearts  and  fairest  homes ;  if  only  thus  •  thou 
canst  learn  that  God  also  has  his  government,  and 
that  all  injustice  is  secession  from  that  government, 
which  his  arm  of  might  will  be  sure  to  crush  out! 

Those  who  oppose  the  method  of  emancipation  allege 
that  it  would  exasperate  the  South  to  the  utmost, 
would  alienate  them  forever  from  us,  would  unite  the 
Border  States  with  them,  and  unite  them  all  against 
us  as  one  man. 

The  fear  of  exasperating  the  South  reminds  one 
of  the  toper,  who  said  that,  when  it  got  to  be  twelve 
o'clock  of  the  night,  he  did  not  care  when  he  went 
home  ;  for  his  wife  was  by  that  time  as  mad  as  she 
could  be,  and  an  hour  or  so  made  no  difference. 
The  South  has  about  filled  the  gamut  of  wrath.  Nor 
have  we  seen  much  difference  in  its  treatment  of  such 
Southern  pro-slavery  men  as  General  Anderson  and 
his  brother  Charles,  and  antislavery  men.  So  far  as 
our  experience  in  this  war  goes,  they  had  as  lief  a  man 
should  be  a  Garrisonian  as  a  Lincolnite. 

So  far  as  the  objection  relates  to  the  supposition 
that  an  edict  of  emancipation  would  turn  the  Border 
States  against  us,  it,  being  military,  may  easily  be 
met  as  such  by  the  fact  that,  even  if  a  million  people 
became  estranged  from  us,  (the  very  largest  estimate,) 
such  an  edict  would  at  once  bring  four  million  (the 


60  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

slaves)  to  our  side.  And  mark  the  difference  between 
those  who  would  go  and  those  who  would  come. 

The  million  who  went  would  prove  by  their  going 
that  they  were  pretended,  or  at  least  half-hearted, 
friends ;  they  would  show  that  their  loyalty  was  but  a 
cover  for  the  preservation  of  Slavery,  —  that  the  Union 
meant  for  them  nothing,  if  not  human  chattels.  The 
four  millions  who  would  be  riveted  to  our  side  by 
this  one  blow  would  be  those  upon  whom  we  might 
depend,  since  their  every  possible  interest  would  then 
be  involved  in  our  success.  Now,  it  is  the  interest 
of  the  negro  that  the  country  should  be  divided,  un- 
less he  is  to  be  emancipated ;  for  disunion  would  at 
least  bring  Freedom's  southern  line  down  to  Mason 
and  Dixon's. 

The  million  who  would  abandon  our  cause  would 
be  chiefly  on  the  border,  within  territory  already  under 
military  occupation  ;  their  disaffection  would  only  need 
a  little  more  vigilance  on  our  part,  and  that  would 
be  a  wise  thing  in  any  case.  The  four  millions  who 
would  be  our  determined  co-laborers  from  that  moment 
are  chiefly  in  disloyal  territory  under  rebel  occupation  ; 
they  are  there  where  we  are  striving,  by  expensive 
and  perilous  expeditions,  to  carry  Union  men ;  and  by 
being  salable  property  they  are  protected  as  no  other 
soldiers  we  could  have  there  would  be. 

Thus,  even  so  far  as  the  two  are  of  military  impor- 
tance, the  emancipation  method  offers  far  more  than 
the  mere  fighting  method.  But  there  is  another  force 


HOW   TO   HITCH   OUR   WAGON  TO   A   STAR.  61 

brought  into  the  action  by  emancipation  which  would 
change  this  war  of  disunion  into  a  putting  forth  of 
unifying  energies,  which  would  be  as  irresistible  in 
establishing  our  social  unity  as  are  our  mountains 
and  valleys  and  rivers  in  establishing  our  geographi- 
cal unity. 


X. 

HOW    TO    HITCH    OUR    WAGON    TO    A    STAR. 

IT  is  one  of  the  signs  of  the  times,  that  the  revolu- 
tion was  strong  enough  to  take  up  bodily  the  Sage 
of  Concord,  and  set  him  in  the  capital  of  this  nation 
to  instruct  our  rulers.  The  advice  he  gave  them 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  one  sentence,  Hitch  your 
wagon  to  a  star! 

Why  not,  Mr.  President !  You  have  some  difficulty 
in  making  things  go,  possibly  have  some  doubt  as  to 
whether  they  can  be  made  to  go ;  but  if  you  could 
manage  to  hitch  the  Union  to  a  star,  that  will  be  sure 
to  move.  If  you  can  get  the  LAWS  OF  NATURE  to  aid 
hi  the  reunion  of  North  and  South,  you  need  not 
fear  any  Confederate  efforts  at  keeping  them  apart. 

The  very  intensity  and  virulence  of  the  hatred  which 
the  South  has  for  the  North  suggest  that  the  feeling 


62  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

is  extremely  morbid,  and  not  very  deep.  It  is  not 
deliberate,  nor  based  on  any  actual  difference,  and 
for  that  very  reason  must  make  up  in  violence  what 
it  lacks  in  the  nature  of  things.  This  hatred  also 
has  sprung  up  too  quickly  to  have  much  depth  or 
genuineness.  It  was  within  a  comparatively  recent 
period  that  the  South  was  one  with  the  North.  We 
are  of  the  same  blood ;  our  fathers  were  within  our 
memory  united.  Section  has  intermarried  with  sec- 
tion. 

There  has  been  but  one  Satanic  divider  who  has 
opened  a  chasm  between  us,  —  Slavery.  The  interests 
of  Slavery  cannot  be  made  the  interests  of  free  society ; 
and  there  cannot  be  one  institution  of  free  society  — 
such  as  the  free  press,  and  free  speech,  and  free  school 
—  which  is  not  a  bomb-shell  for  Slavery.  Free  society 
being  necessarily  a  continual  assault  upon  Slavery, 
Slavery  hates  the  North.  It  is  not  the  Southern  man, 
it  is  the  virus  of  Slavery  in  his  veins,  which  hates  the 
North  ;  as  the  Indian  plead  before  the  court,  that  not 
he,  but  the  whiskey,  committed  the  murder.  Take  that 
virus  away,  my  Northern  friend,  and  he  is  a  Saxon 
man,  she  a  Saxon  woman,  like  yourself. 

The  writer  of  these  pages  was  reared  in  the  midst 
of  hatred  and  contempt  of  the  Northern  people,  and 
did  himself  hate  and  despise  them  cordially  during 
all  his  early  youth ;  he  held  it  to  be  his  highest  ambi- 
tion to  assist  in  severing  that  section  from  the  North. 
But  fortune  led  him  to  a  year's  residence  in  a  little 


HOW   TO   HITCH   OUR   WAGON   TO   A   STAB.  63 

Quaker  settlement  where  Slavery  did  not  exist,  and 
which  consequently  was  an  oasis  upon  a  Slavery-wasted 
desert;  and  with  this  one  step  out  of  the  atmosphere 
of  Slavery,  with  the  first  glance  of  doubt  toward  that 
institution,  a  cloud  of  illusions  cleared  up,  the  antipa- 
thy to  Northern  men  disappeared,  and  he  experienced 
a  revulsion  in  their  favor  which  did  them  even  more 
than  justice. 

He  knows,  moreover,  the  leaders  of  the  Southern 
Rebellion,  many  of  them  personally,  all  of  them  by 
character,  and  knows  them  to  be  very  earnest  mad- 
men ;  he  knows  that  the  North,  can,  by  sealing  up 
the  one  source  of  madness  and  disunion  which  has 
within  a  few  years  brought  about  this  alienation, 
wither  it  up  forever. 

France  and  England  had  a  much  longer  and  more 
rancorous  feud  than  this  between  the  North  and  the 
South.  "  I  will  fight  a  Frenchman,"  said  Lord  Nel- 
son, "  wherever  I  can  find  him ;  wherever  he  can 
anchor,  my  ship  shall  be  there."  But  a  year  of  a 
common  interest  made  them  allies ;  lately  their  sov- 
ereigns exchanged  visits ;  and  it  is  the  estimate  of 
the  best  judges  that  the  current  generation  will  bear 
to  its  grave  all  memory  of  the  feud  between  the 
English  and  the  French. 

Men  will  love,  and  if  need  be  die  for,  that  by  which 
they  and  their  families  live.  If  Slavery  is  the  basis 
of  their  homes ;  if  from  slave  institutions  comes  the 
bread  that  sustains  the  life  of  wife  and  child,  then 


64  THE   GOLDEN  HOI  R. 

they  will  fight  and  die  for  Slavery.  If  the  home, 
the  bread  of  wife  and  child,  are  derived  from  free 
institutions,  then  for  these  men  will  fight  and  die. 
Did  we  only  compel  the  people  of  the  South  to  get 
their  daily  bread  from  free  institutions,  in  less  than 
five  years  they  would  be  ready  to  fight  and  die  by 
our  sides  for  free  institutions.  They  would  call  the 
Yankees  by  hard  names  for  some  years  after,  no  doubt, 
but  there  could  be  no  war  between  the  sections;  on 
the  contrary,  every  healing  influence  in  the  universe 
would  be  at  work  to  cure  these  lacerations  made  by  the 
tomahawk  of  Slavery,  which  would  then  be  buried. 

When  Freedom  folds  her  blessed  wings  over  both 
North  and  South,  then  every  steamer,  every  car,  every 
telegraphic  line  plying  between  them,  will  be  a  shuttle 
ceaselessly  weaving  together  the  hearts  of  their  mil- 
lions into  one  woof  of  interest  and  affection. 

But  who  can  enumerate  or  utter  one  in  a  thousand 
of  the  unswerving,  all-compelling  laws  with  which  those 
who  trust  in  Everlasting  Justice  ally  themselves :  stead- 
fast upon  their  orbits,  my  masters,  these  stars  will 
surely  move,  and  no  Southern  Sisera  shall  be  a  match 
for  them  in  their  courses.  But  we  must  hitch  our 
cause  to  them:  the  Sage  said,  —  We  cannot  bring  the 
heavenly  powers  to  us,  but  if  we  will  only  choose 
our  jobs  in  directions  in  which  they  travel,  they  will 
undertake  them  with  the  greatest  pleasure.  It  is  a 
peremptory  rule  with  them,  that  they  never  go  out 
of  their  road. 


THROUGH  SELF-CONQUEST  TO  CONQUEST.      65 

XI. 

THROUGH  SELF-CONQUEST  TO   CONQUEST. 

A  GREEK  fable  relates,  that  when  Hercules  and 
Achelous  fought  together,  Achelous  changed  himself 
into  the  form  of  a  mad  bull,  thinking  to  contend  more 
strongly ;  but  Hercules  retained  the  FORM  OF  A  MAN, 
and,  seizing  the  horn  of  the  bull,  it  broke  off  in  his 
hand,  and  became  the  celebrated  cornucopia. 

One  very  obvious  interpretation  of  this  fable  is,  that 
it  is  always  best  to  take  the  bull  by  the  horns.  But 
I  use  it  for  the  ancient  testimony  it  conveys  in  favor 
of  the  superiority  of  the  purely  human  power  over 
the  greatest  animal  ferocity. 

How  rarely  has  Slavery,  in  its  violent  advance,  been 
met  in  the  manly  way ;  how  much  oftener  by  the 
fawning  of  hounds !  And  it  is  just  this  unmanly  at- 
titude which  the  representatives  of  the  North  have  so 
long  assumed  that  has  invited  the  arrogant  demands 
of  Slavery  which  are  now  resisted  with  bloodshed. 
Mr.  Goodall,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  under  affidavit  to 
prove  John  Brown's  insanity,  related  that  once,  when 
on  the  cars  with  him,  they  fell  into  some  conversation 
concerning  Slavery,  and  in  reply  to  some  of  Brown's 
radicalism,  "  I  attempted,"  says  Goodall,  "  to  point 
out  a  more  conservative  course,  remarking  very  kindly 
to  him  that  Kentucky,  in  my  opinion,  would  have 


66  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

been  a  free  State  ere  this,  had  it  not  been  for  the  ex- 
citement and  prejudices  engendered  by  ultra  abolition- 
ists of  Ohio.  At  this  remark,  he  rose  to  his  feet,  with 
clenched  fist,  eyes  rolling  like  an  insane  man  (as  he 
most  assuredly  was),  and  remarked,  that  the  South 
would  become  free  within  one  year,  were  it  not  that 
there  were  too  many  such  scoundrels  as  myself  to 
rivet  the  chains  of  Slavery."  Innocent  Goodall  of 
Cleveland !  how  little  did  you  know  that  you  were 
seeing  a  picture  then  which  Art  and  Poetry  will  com- 
bine to  celebrate  as  one  of  the  first  gleams  of  sanity 
out  of  a  nation's  long  lunacy !  That  remark  of 
Brown's  is  precisely  the  sanest  I  ever  heard.  If  the 
North  went  South  nobly,  Slavery  would  clear  away 
like  a  phantom  of  night.  Whatever  be  the  faults  of 
Southerners,  they  do  like  those  who  stand  up  squarely 
for  their  principles  ;  in  all  my  life  in  the  South,  I 
never  remember  to  have  heard  a  dough-face  in  the 
North  spoken  of  otherwise  than  with  contempt. 

Let  me  relate  a  conversation  literally  as  it  occurred  a 
few  years  ago  in  Richmond,  Virginia.  Some  New  York 
lawyer  had  in  the  case  of  the  Lemmon  slaves,  which 
involved  a  principle  important  to  the  South,  argued  the 
case  successfully  for  Lemmon  and  Slavery.  He  then 
came  down  to  Virginia  to  be  lionized.  A  dinner  was 
given  in  Richmond  by  persons  connected  with  the  Leg- 
islature, to  which  this  lawyer  was  invited.  Here  is 
the  conversation,  just  as  it  occurred  across  the  table 
from  the  lawyer,  between  two  members :  — 


THROUGH   SELF-CONQUEST   TO   CONQUEST.  67 

1st  Member.     "  I  don't  think  much  of  that  man." 

2d  Member.     "Nor  I." 

1st  Mem.  "  He  is  n't  a  gentleman ;  but  it 's  well 
enough  to  have  such  men  up  North." 

2d  Mem.     "  They  're  useful  enough." 

"Lst  Mem.  "  Tom,  why  is  it  they  never  raise  any 
gentlemen  up  North  ?  " 

2d  Mem.  "  0, 1  've  been  North,  and  I  tell  you  they 
do  have  gentlemen ;  but  then  they  're  all  damned 
Abolitionists." 

Virginia  said  to  Edward  Everett,  "  I  envy  not  the 
heart  or  the  head  of  the  man  who,  trained  amid  free 
institutions,  comes  down  to  defend  Human  Slavery  "  ;  * 
to  John  Brown  Virginia  said,  "He  is  firm,  truthful, 
intelligent,  —  the  gamest  man  I  ever  saw."  f 

Sitting,  last  summer,  in  the  porch  of  a  hotel  at  New- 
port, Rhode  Island,  I  heard  the  original  conversation 
between  a  Northerner  and  Southerner  which  W.  Shake- 
spere  has  travestied  by  premeditation  in  the  following 
conversation  between  Hamlet  and  Polonius  :  — 

"  Ham.  Do  you  see  yonder  cloud,  that 's  almost  in 
the  shape  of  a  camel  ? 

"  Pol.     By  the  mass,  and  't  is  like  a  camel,  indeed. 

"  Ham.     Methinks  it  is  like  a  weasel. 

"  Pol.     It  is  backed  like  a  weasel. 

"  Ham.     Or  like  a  whale. 

"  Pol.     Very  like  a  whale." 

The    Hamlet    in    this    case    was    a    wealthy    semi- 

*  John  Eandolph  of  Roanoke.  f  Henry  A.  Wise. 


68  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

Southerner,  with  Secession  sympathies,  thinly  disguised 
under  a  few  star-spangled  phrases  ;  the  compliant  Po- 
lonius  was  from  Boston,  —  where  the  largest  and  the 
smallest  things  are  said  and  done  of  any  place  on  this 
continent.  In  Boston  you  shall  find  your  noblest  and 
your  meanest  man ;  there  you  shall  find  the  faithful 
Senator  who  will  stand  for  Freedom  until  he  is  strick- 
en down,  and  there  the  creature  who  will  touch  glasses 
with  the  assassin  of  his  own  Senator  within  two  squares 
of  the  prostrate  form.  "We  had  brutes  enough  in  Cin- 
cinnati to  mob  Wendell  Phillips ;  but  no  man  who 
could  write  a  sentence  could  be  found  here  who  would 
justify  it :  the  mob  had  to  go  to  Beacon  Street,  Bos- 
ton, for  a  defender ;  the  Courier  was  ready  to  do 
their  work !  But  where  else  could  we  have  found  a 
Phillips  ? 

But,  to  return,  the  conversation  between  the  two 
men  in  Newport,  both  persons  of  distinction,  was  ex- 
actly given  in  the  extract  from  Hamlet.  The  Bos- 
tonian  atoned  for  saying  that  he  favored  the  Union, 
by  allowing  every  noble  idea  and  name  of  America, 
and  especially  of  his  own  State,  to  be  vilified  in  his 
presence. 

"When  is  this  contemptible  and  cowardly  abasement 
to  end  ?  Will  the  line  of  such  poltroons  hold  out  to 
the  crack  of  doom?  I  add  my  testimony  to  that  of 
Miss  Grimkd,  Mr.  Helper,  Mattie  Griffith,  and  other 
natives  of  the  South  who  have  caught  a  glimpse  of 
the  monster,  whose  coils  have  been  tightening  about 


THROUGH   SELF-CONQUEST   TO   CONQUEST.  69 

the  dear  land  they  have  been  compelled  to  leave,  and 
who  are  doing  their  utmost  to  rescue  it ;  with  them 
I  declare,  that  I  have  known  nothing  so  heart-sick- 
eriing,  so  chilling,  so  utterly  diabolical,  as  that  which 
calls  itself  conservatism  in  the  North. 

When  I  first  sat  foot  in  New  England,  I  met,  at  a 

table  in  Boston,  the  Hon.  Mr.  .  Hearing  that  I 

was  from  the  South,  he  instantly  turned  his  attention 
to  me,  and  began  a  series  of  adulations  of  Southern 
institutions  and  people ;  apologizing  for  his  own  re- 
gion ;  sneering  at  the  liberal  men  of  New  England, 
as  a  very  small  band  of  crazy  folk !  What  deathly 
colds  fell  on  me  then  I  pray  may  never  fall  on 
him!  Through  how  many  toils  and  struggles  had  I 
come  to  rest  upon  the  free  heart  of  New  England ; 
by  what  weary  marches  and  flinty  paths  had  I  come  to 
do  homage  to  those  men  at  whom  he  was  sneering,  as 
to  heralds  of  this  nation's  promised  land !  I  turned, 
and  told  him  plainly  that  he  had  mistaken  my  opin- 
ions, which  were  not  those  common  in  the  South ; 
and  that  I  could  not  help  thinking  that  such  dispar- 
agements of  free  men  and  institutions,  on  the  part 
of  those  whom  they  had  fostered,  were  like  tempting 
with  alcohol  an  inebriate  whose  family  is  starving 
at  home. 

I  have  in  my  mind  a  case  of  a  very  different  kind. 
It  was,  I  believe,  about  eight  years  ago  that  I  was 
consulted  by  a  committee  at  New  Haven  as  to  whether 
I  knew  any  gentleman  in  the  South  who  would  be 


70  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

willing  to  deliver  a  lecture  in  New  Haven  in  defence 
of  the  institution  of  Slavery.  My  mind  fixed  upon 
George  Fitzhugh,  of  King  George  County,  Va.,  who 
had  written  works  on  the  "Failure  of  Free  Society," 
and  "The  Sociology  of  the  South."  Mr.  Fitzhugh 
went  to  New  Haven,  and  gave,  on  the  evening  of  his 
arrival,  a  lecture  entitled,  "Free  Society  a  Failure." 
Wendell  Phillips  was  present,  and  heard  the  lecture, 
and  Mr.  Fitzhugh  evidently  took  pleasure  in  seeing 
him.  Fitzhugh's  method  of  proving  Free  Society  a 
failure  was  by  theories  and  speculations  which  had 
got  into  the  crevices  and  under  the  eaves  of  his  brain, 
like  the  bats  in  the  rickety  old  mansion,  situated  on 
the  fag-end  of  a  once  noble  estate,  in  which  he  re- 
sided. This  spot  of  "  the  sacred  soil "  he  had  never 
left  for  a  month,  and  of  Free  Society,  of  course, 
knew  nothing.  At  New  Haven  he  fell,  I  am  happy 
to  say,  into  very  different  hands  from  those  of  the 

Hon.  Mr.  of  Boston,  or  of  Polonius  at  Newport. 

He  was  the  guest  of  that  honest  and  noble  man,  if 
God  ever  made  one,  the  late  Mr.  Samuel  Foote.  On 
the  next  morning  after  the  lecture,  Mr.  Foote  took 
Mr.  Fitzhugh  in  a  buggy,  and  drove  throughout  the 
beautiful  town  of  New  Haven  and  its  environs ;  showed 
him  houses  and  cottages  which  would  be  marvels  of 
elegance  in  Virginia,  and  informed  him,  without  any 
allusion  to  log-cabins,  that  many  of  these  mansions 
belonged  to  mechanics,  and  some  even  to  day-labor- 
ers. Fitzlmgh  was  thunder-stricken.  He  had  proved 


THROUGH   SELF-CONQUEST   TO   CONQUEST.  71 

Free  Society  a  failure  without  ever  leaving  his  State ; 
nobody  replied  to  him,  but  he  went  home  answered. 
He  always  preserved  an  ominous  silence  about  the 
visit ;  but  he  acknowledged  his  mistake  about  North- 
ern society,  and  though  before  that  he  had  invaria- 
bly printed  a  pamphlet  every  six  months  in  favor  of 
the  "  Sociology  of  the  South,"  I  believe  he  has  not 
penned  a  line  of  the  kind  since.  The  grave  and  im- 
pressive rebuke  of  Samuel  Foote,  who  simply  said 
that  he  "  would  take  him  (Fitzhugh)  out  to  see  how 
Free  Society  had  failed,"  was  never  lost.  Mr.  Foote 
was  a  gentleman  in  an  old  sense,  which  is  sometimes 
forgotten  even  in  scholastic  Boston ;  that  is,  he  was 
gentle,  but  always  man. 

If  Northern  men  would  oftener  refrain  from  abne- 
gating their  manhood  and  slandering  their  own  coun- 
try, —  did  they  act  this  manly  and  gentle  part  toward 
Southern  men,  —  I  can  imagine  many  benefits  which 
must  flow  from  such  a  course.  The  South  would 
respect  the  North,  and  the  sentiment  of  the  North. 
The  South  always  believed  that  the  North  would  cringe 
to  the  last,  as  she  had  been  doing  for  fifty  years. 
What  say  you,  gentlemen,  are  we  done  cringing  ? 
Or  is  Mr.  Vallandigham  and  his  posture  to  be  first 
endured,  then  pitied,  then  embraced,  —  as,  according 
to  the  poet,  is  the  way  with  moral  monsters  ?  "  I  do 
not  trust  him,"  said  Richelieu  of  the  soldier ;  "  he 
bows  too  low."  Hamlet  never  despises  Polonius 
more  than  when  the  latter  fools  him  to  the  top  of 


72  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

his  bent.  Had  the  North  been  determined,  outspoken, 
and  faithful  to  herself,  she  must  have  been  faithful 
also  to  the  South,  and  might  have  averted  the  tumor 
which  now  eats  into  her  Southern  brother's  heart,  in- 
stead of  fostering  it. 

"  What  mighty  matter,"  says  the  Brahmin,  "  is  the 
subjugation  of  the  sea-girt  earth  to  those  who  cannot 
subdue  themselves."  Not  until  we  have  conquered 
this  dapperness  and  inhumanity  in  ourselves ;  not 
until  the  North  ceases  to  ask  what  shall  be  done 
with  negroes ;  not  until  the  infamy  of  Illinois  Black 
Laws  is  held  to  be  deeper  than  Carolina  Slave  Laws, 
—  can  we  gain  any  noble  victory.  Through  self- 
control  lies  the  only  path  to  control ;  at  present  we 
have  as  yet  to  prove  that  we  are  worthy  to  win  the 
victories  of  Liberty  and  Law. 

When  the  North  rises  fully  to  the  stature  of  man- 
hood, and  grasps  the  sharp  horn  of  the  Southern  Ache- 
lous  with  a  human  hand,  —  no  longer  meeting  horn 
with  horn,  —  then  that  horn  will  break  off,  and  become 
for  this  nation  the  horn  of  plenty.  A  touch  of  pure 
humanity  can  make  this  Rebellion  yield  a  fruitage 
of  peace,  prosperity,  and  honor  for  which  we  might 
otherwise  have  had  to  wait  a  century.  Ah,  had  we 
a  Hercules,  knowing  that  hand  is  stronger  than  horn, 
to  guide  us ! 


A   POST-PRANDIAL   POINT.  73 

XII. 

A   POST-PRANDIAL    POINT. 

AT  a  dinner  given  in  Washington  to  Mr.  Prentice, 
Mr.  Secretary  Smith,  replying  with  warmth  to  some 
strong  antislavery  sentiments  which  had  just  been 
uttered  by  Mr.  Cameron,  said :  "  If  we,  being  eigh- 
teen millions,  cannot  put  down  this  rebellion  of  six 
millions  without  freeing  their  slaves,  we  ought  to  give 
the  war  up." 

Doubtless  the  Secretary,  when  he  got  off  this  bit  of 
wisdom,  had  been  paying  more  attention  to  his  own 
Interior  than  to  that  of  the  country. 

"Six  bad  men  can  burn  up  a  half-dozen  blocks  of  a 
city,  and  destroy  a  thousand  lives,  before  they  could  be 
arrested.  It  would  be  a  fine  thing  for  such  to  retain 
at  their  trial  Mr.  Smith,  whose  opening  position  would 
be :  "  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury,  if  several  blocks  of  a  city 
and  hundreds  of  people  cannot  keep  from  being  burnt 
up  by  six  men,  they  ought  to  be  burnt  up  !  " 

The  remark  brings  before  us  the  inequality  of  the 
combatants  in  this  war. 

Some  years  ago  Daniel  Webster  was  challenged  to 
a  duel  by  some  booby  from  Texas,  (I  believe,)  whose 
range  of  ability  was  limited  to  the  skilful  use  of  rifle 
and  bowie-knife.  Mr.  Webster  was  inclined  to  accept 
the  challenge ;  but  his  friends  interfered,  and  declared 


74  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

that  the  stakes  were  unequal ;  that  such  a  brain  as  that 
of  Daniel  Webster's  could  not  be  risked  against  even 
many  hundreds  of  Texans,  much  less  this  boor.  They 
were  willing  that  a  certain  mad  bull  at  Marshfield 
should  meet  the  Texan,  but  compelled  Mr.  Webster  to 
decline. 

The  reading  public  is  now  reading  with  delight  the 
exquisite  delineations  of  Theodore  Winthrop.  You 
who  have  read  "  Cecil  Dreeme,"  "  John  Brent,"  and 
"  Edwin  Brothertoft,"  think  a  moment  of  such  an 
imagination,  such  culture,  being  at  the  mercy  of  some 
wretched  little  drummer-boy !  Where  are  his  equals 
in  the  South  ?  or  those  of  Lyon,  of  Baker,  or  of  Fitz- 
James  O'Brien? 

But  these  are  minor  inequalities,  and  we  allude  to 
them  only  to  remember  that  there  is  a  fearful  inequality 
in  the  institutions  which  produce  such  men  as  those 
I  have  named,  and  those  which  produce  Floyds  and 
Twiggses  in  shoals,  but  to  eight  millions  of  men  not 
one  literary  or  scientific  man  of  any  importance. 

Americans !  we  have  no  right  to  imperil  LIBERTY 
one  hour,  nor  to  allow  it  to  remain  in  peril,  that  we 
may  show  the  world  that  we  can  "whip  the  South." 
The  point  which  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  raised  is 
but  a  point  of  sectional  vanity,  and  it  is  far  beneath 
the  tremendous  issue  in  this  crisis.  Is  it  a  point  of 
pride  with  Freedom  to  prove  that  it  excels  Slavery  as 
butcher  of  men  ?  When  this  war  began,  the  successes 
were  more  frequently  on  the  side  of  Slavery,  and  the 


A   POST-PRANDIAL    POINT.  75 

wisest  said :  "  There  are  glorious  obstacles  to  the  success 
of  the  North  !  Free  institutions  do  not  breed  the  requi- 
site number  of  Floyds  and  Twiggses  —  thieves  and  trai- 
tors —  for  this  work ;  Freedom's  sons  cannot  hate  and 
sting  like  vipers  ;  they  will  not  poison  springs,  and  put 
up  false  banners  to  lure  a  foe  into  traps."  There  was 
room  for  some  pride  in  that  direction.  But  these  glo- 
rious obstacles  are  fading  ;  the  thirst  for  Southern  blood 
grows ;  and  presently  the  North  will  be  demoralized 
enough  to  equal  the  recklessness  and  spite  of  Slavery. 

Once,  says  a  fable,  there  was  a  stag  which  had  long, 
branching  horns,  of  which  it  was  very  proud ;  but  of 
its  feet  it  was  very  much  ashamed.  One  day  this  stag, 
pursued  by  hounds,  found  its  despised  feet  quite  ser- 
viceable ;  and  indeed  the  feet  would  have  saved  him 
had  it  not  been  for  the  horns  of  which  he  was  so  proud, 
for  these  becoming  entangled  in  some  bushes,  the  stag 
was  overtaken  by  the  hounds. 

The  North  can  win  no  military  laurels  in  this  con- 
flict ;  should  it  gain  the  victory,  the  world  will  see  as 
little  glory  in  it  as  it  saw  in  our  victory  over  Mexico. 
Let  the  North  not  covet  a  distinction  which  she  can 
never  possess,  thanks  to  the  superior  glories  of  Lib- 
erty !  To  the  proposition  from  South  Carolina,  that 
her  sons  should  meet  more  than  their  number  of  Mas- 
sachusetts men,  and  decide  the  issue  in  this  country  by 
this  duel  of  States,  a  shrewd  resident  of  the  Old  Bay 
proposed,  as  an  amendment,  that  these  should  meet,  but 
that,  instead  of  using  weapons  of  death,  vast  blank-books 


76  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

should  be  opened,  and  if  a  third  more  Massachusetts 
men  could  not  write  their  own  names  than  South  Car- 
olina men,  the  South  should  be  declared  victorious. 
That  was  rather  cruel  toward  the  Southerners,  beneath 
whose  rule,  entirely  great,  the  bowie-knife  is  mightier 
than  the  pen ;  but  it  was  from  a  man  who  had  wit 
enough  to  know  that  Liberty's  Code  of  Honor  is  a  dif- 
ferent one  from  that  of  Slavery.  To  that  or  any  le- 
gitimate weapon  we  may  confidently  trust  American 
Freedom  ;  but  not  one  hour  to  the  shifting  chances  of 
war,  if  we  can  help  it,  —  not  to  the  accident  of  a 
general's  being  drunk  or  sober,  or  the  position  of  a 
ditch  or  fence.  If  these  flimsy  defences  are  the  sur- 
est with  which  we  can  surround  the  world's  trust  to 
America,  be  sure  the  precious  lamp  will  be  removed 
to  those  who  can  keep  it  alive,  though  we  be  left  in 
outer  darkness. 


XIII. 

THE    PROBABILITIES    OF   INSURRECTION. 

THE  experience  of  the  Slave  States  has  furnished 
reason  to  believe  that  no  general  and  concerted  insur- 
rection of  slaves  can  occur  for  many  years. 

In  estimating  this  question,  several  things  are  to  be 


THE   PROBABILITIES   OF  ESSURRECTION.  77 

remembered: — 1.  That  the  negroes  cannot  generally 
write,  or  use  the  mails  or  the  facilities  of  travel.  They 
are  undoubtedly  anxious  enough  for  their  freedom  to 
strike  any  blow  that  might  have  a  reasonable  prospect  of 
success  ;  but  they  can  see  as  readily  as  we  that  concert 
would  be  necessary,  and  that  to  any  great  extent  is  im- 
possible. It  will  be  remembered  that  the  insurrection 
of  Nat  Turner  and  that  planned  by  Denmark  Vesey 
covered  very  small  sections  of  the  States  in  which  they 
occurred,  though  they  were  the  most  extensive  and 
elaborately  prepared  of  all  that  have  occurred.  2.  The 
negroes  are  an  extremely  cautious  people,  and  not  at 
all  self-reliant.  Much  of  this  is  the  result  of  their 
training.  A  negro  may  be  browbeaten  even  into  the 
confession  of  things  he  has  not  done ;  and  at  a  word  of 
suspicion  about  any  real  offence,  he  at  once  supposes 
the  master  knows  everything,  and  makes  a  clean  breast 
of  it.  It  is  probably  through  these  means,  rather  than 
deliberate  treachery  upon  the  part  of  any  of  them, 
that  schemes  of  this  kind  have  been  so  often  betrayed  by 
negroes  themselves.  3.  The  negroes  are  superstitious, 
and  in  the  direction  of  special  providences.  They 
believe  generally  in  luck  and  miracle,  and  the  fatalism 
of  the  Baptist  Church,  to  which  they  usually  belong, 
helps  to  cut  the  sinews  of  their  own  right  arms. 
"  Who  would  be  free,  themselves  must  strike  the  blow," 
would  be  an  incomprehensible  sentiment  among  them, 
and,  in  my  opinion,  it  will  never  be  true  in  their  case. 
When  their  blow  comes,  it  will  be  at  the  end  of  a  long 


78  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

series  of  others'  blows.  They  are  always  looking  for 
their  Moses,  whom  they  would  not  follow  unless  he 
had  his  wonder-working  rod  along.  4.  But  the  chief 
fetter  worn  by  this  race  is  the  habit  of  servile  obedi- 
ence :  the  master's  ordinary  tone  and  cowhide  are  more 
irresistible  than  his  musket  and  epaulets. 

Undoubtedly  there  will  be  in  the  future,  as  there 
have  been  in  the  past,  here  and  there  local  insurrec- 
tions ;  but  none  that  could  excite  a  general  panic  in 
the  South  will  this  generation  be  apt  to  witness. 

On  reflection,  it  will  be  seen  that  all  of  the  forces 
above  enumerated  as  those  which  will  be  likely  to  pre- 
vent any  general  slave  insurrection  are  at  the  present 
time  doubly  active.  In  the  present  juncture,  the  slave 
has  every  inducement  to  remain  quiet,  none  at  all  to 
rebel :  neither  side  is  ready  to  befriend  him  as  an 
insurrectionist,  both  are  helping  him  as  a  slave.  He 
is,  of  the  three  parties  in  this  contest,  as  he  should 
be,  infinitely  the  best  off.  At  any  rate,  he  is  very 
sure  not  to  rebel  when  every  Southern  eye  is  on  the 
watch,  and  every  hand  on  the  trigger. 

So  those  who  are  hoping  to  have  their  shoulders 
relieved  of  the  burden  of  doing  justice  to  these  slaves 
will  find  that  they  will  act  as  Paul  and  Silas  when  their 
prison  was  opened  by  an  earthquake,  who  said  to  the 
frightened  Macedonians,  "  Let  the  magistrates  come 
and  fetch  us  out."  He  certainly  will  not  stir  to  be- 
friend or  welcome  those  who  have  not  decided  whether 
or  not  to  exile  him  in  case  he  becomes  free ;  who  have 


THE   PROBABILITIES   OF   INSURRECTION.  79 

not  yet  declared  even  those  deserted  by  rebel  masters 
to  be  free  ;  and  who  really  show  more  aversion  to 
personal  proximity  to  him  than  his  Southern  master. 

But  every  one  of  the  inward  links  which  bind  him 
now  —  his  caution,  superstition,  and  servile  obedience 
—  would  be  transferred  to  our  banner  on  the  instant 
that  he  should  be  declared  free  under  it,  and  would 
curl  about  it  like  tendrils.  Not  insurrections,  but 
stampedes,  would  at  once  follow  our  proclamation  of 
freedom ;  and  they  would  have  to  be,  and  would  be, 
checked  immediately.  But  to  check  them  knocks  into 
pi  every  column  of  the  Southern  army. 

The  slave's  heart  everywhere  is  at  this  moment  filled 
with  the  one  burning  idea  of  freedom;  he  is  doing 
now  exactly  what  his  friends  advise  him  to  do,  —  sit- 
ting still;  he  has  shown  great  wisdom  during  this 
war.  But  he  listens  every  hour  of  the  night  and  day 
for  the  watchword  which  calls  him  to  his  feet. 

That  word  is  not  Confiscation  ;  it  is  not  Coloniza- 
tion. Hearing  people  discussing  and  advocating  every 
measure  for  these  people  except  simple  justice,  one 
thinks  of  Cassim,  loaded  with  treasures  in  the  rob- 
bers' cave,  with  the  door  fast  locked  in  his  face,  call- 
ing for  it  to  open  by  every  name  but  the  one  to 
which  it  really  does  open.  He  says,  "  Barley,"  and 
"  Oats,"  —  but  the  door  opens  not  a  crack.  Let  our 
rulers  take  care  that  the  Sesame  which  alone  can 
open  the  door  of  success  in  this  war  is  not  first  ut- 
tered, as  in  Cassim's  case,  by  the  robbers :  the  side 


80  THE  GOLDEN  HOUR. 

that  first  cries  FREEDOM  TO  THE  SLAVE  gains  the  day 
in  this  war. 

We  hear  some  talk  of  arming  the  slaves :  would  it 
not  be  well  first  to  try  the  effect  of  doing  them  simple, 
unelaborate  justice  ? 

For  that  word  the  slave's  heart  far  down  on  the 
Southern  plantations  is  now  all  ear.  It  is  a  common 
error  to  suppose  that  the  slaves  on  the  plantations  of 
the  far  South  are  more  ignorant,  degraded,  and  obtuse, 
or  that  they  are  less  informed  in  public  matters,  than 
those  in  the  Border  States.  The  contrary  is  truer.  It 
has  been  for  many  generations  the  invariable  custom 
to  send  to  these  plantations  of  the  Cotton  and  Sugar 
States  every  negro  near  the  border  who  at  any  time 
shows  a  desire  for  freedom,  or  who  has  attempted  to 
run  off,  or  has  been  overtaken,  or  who  shows  enough 
intelligence  for  an  inference  that  he  will  be  restive 
under  the  yoke.  The  number  of  overseers  and  strict- 
ness of  patrol  on  these  plantations  make  it  compara- 
tively unimportant  whether  the  slave  is  discontented 
or  otherwise.  The  consequence  is,  that  there  has  been 
through  many  years  a  gradual  accumulation  in  the 
far  South  of  the  most  inflammable  and  intelligent 
negroes ;  and  any  serious  insurrections  would  be  far 
more  apt  to  come  from  them  than  from  their  more 
comfortable  Border-State  comrades. 

But  they  listen  on  the  Border  also  for  that  word  to 
whose  Orphic  music  the  hearts  of  men  are  made  to 
dance,  though  they  were  as  stones  and  trees.  The 


THE   PROBABILITIES   OF  INSURRECTION.  81 

Border-State  negro  has  had  his  senses  whetted  by  a 
certain  kind  of  perpetual  fear  and  ever-recurring 
anguish.  For  these  are  the  slave-breeding  States.  Not 
one  half  of  the  slaves  born  in  any  of  the  Border 
States  are  or  can  be  retained  there ;  the  demand  for 
them  is  insufficient.  This  makes  the  yoke  through 
all  this  region  terribly  galling.  Year  by  year  parents 
watch  the  growth  of  their  children,  knowing  that  they 
cannot  be  kept  at  home,  —  that  there  each  will  be  only 
another  mouth  to  feed  and  back  to  clothe,  —  knowing 
that  so  soon  as  the  year  of  noblest  promise  and  strength 
comes,  it  comes  only  to  bring  the  bitter  parting  and 
heart-break.  No  farmer  gathers  in  his  harvest  more 
regularly  than  the  slave-trader  of  the  Border  States, 
putting  in  his  scythe  this  year  for  the  human  hearts 
which  were  not  quite  ripe  for  plantation-service  last 
year. 

Thus  they  listen,  thus  they  watch,  more  than  they 
that  watch  for  the  morning :  God's  captive  Israel,  of 
whom  he  says,  They  shall  prosper  who  love  thee! 


4* 


82  THE    GOLDEN   HOL'i;. 

XIV. 

MERCY,    AND    NOT    SACRIFICE. 

AFTER  what  has  been  said,  there  is  no  need  that  we 
shall  dwell  upon  the  objection,  sometimes  offered  to  an 
edict  of  emancipation,  that  it  would  cover  the  South 
with  a  cruel  servile  insurrection. 

Even  if  it  were  true,  the  objection  is  absurdly 
oblivious  of  the  cruel  white  insurrection  which  is  now 
raging  in  the  South,  to  say  nothing  of  its  ignoring 
the  chronic  and  perpetual  insurrection  against  the 
rights  and  happiness  of  a  whole  race,  which  Slavery 
essentially  is. 

But  the  history  of  every  nation  which  has  dared 
the  guilty  experiment  of  holding  man  as  property 
repeats  the  warning  of  Schiller,  — "  Tremble  before 
the  man  who  has  not  yet  broken  his  chain :  tremble 
not  before  the  freeman." 

Though  no  insurrection  of  slaves  can  possibly  come 
to  do  for  us  in  this  war  what  an  edict  of  emancipation 
alone  can  do  ;  though  for  a  generation,  or  generations, 
the  slave  may  serve  his  Southern  master ;  yet,  if  that 
institution  be  allowed  to  survive  this  war,  the  South 
is  delivered  up  as  to  the  ever-narrowing  circles  of  a 
whirlpool,  which  must  bear  it  into  its  vortex,  unless 
another  war  may  once  more  give  the  nation  the  power 
to  rescue  that  insane  section.  For  these  slaves  must 


MERCY,   AND  NOT   SACRIFICE.  83 

multiply  until  their  enslavement  becomes  impossible. 
Any  man,  whose  opinion  is  entitled  to  be  listened  to, 
knows  that  this  institution  is  in  the  end  a  doomed 
institution.  But  we  know,  also,  that  slaveholding,  like 
any  other  bad  passion,  grows  with  what  it  feeds  on, 
and  has  thus  been  a  more  determined  thing  in  the 
South  with  every  successive  year.  If,  then,  in  this 
Golden  Hour,  when  we  have  the  means  already  pre- 
pared and  ready  to  prevent  any  evils  which  could 
occur,  we  do  not,  what  is  there  in  the  future  but  a 
certain  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment  and  fiery  in- 
dignation ? 

Are  you  quite  sure,  0  ye  who  are  so  fearful  of  servile 
insurrection,  that,  at  any  other  period,  if  the  South 
shall  cry,  Help,  —  as  she  surely  will,  —  we  shah1  have 
a  million  men  ready  on  the  instant  to  shield  her  from 


carnage  ? 


The  social  system  of  the  South  has  been  undermined 
by  the  hand  of  God:  when,  in  eternal  wisdom  and 
truth,  he  laid  the  foundations  of  the  world,  he  loved  the 
human  being  for  which  all  was  a  mansion  too  well 
to  permit  any  wrong  to  go  on  without  retribution ; 
and  under  the  foundations  of  all  injustice  he  laid  the 
trains  which  must  in  some  way  lay  them  in  ruins. 
The  fusee  to  that  undermining  is  now  in  our  hand  : 
we  may  now  fire  it  with  fire  from  the  altar  of  God, 
which  can  work  no  indiscriminate  ruin ;  but  who 
shall  tell  the  horrors  if  in  the  future  that  fusee  shall 
be  set  on  fire  of  hell  ? 


84  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

Nothing  is  more  sad  than  when  the  human  mind 
puts  darkness  for  light,  and  light  for  darkness ;  and  I 
know  of  no  case  where  it  is  done  more  dangerously 
than  in  calling  that  measure  inhuman  and  cruel  which 
is  the  only  one  not  utterly  pitiless  to  the  South. 

The  present  attitude  of  the  North  is  oppressive  to- 
ward the  South.  The  North  seems  disposed  simply 
to  cripple  and  limit  Slavery,  and  yet  about  as  anxious 
as  the  South  to  prevent  emancipation.  In  other  words, 
the  North  is  opposed  to  freeing  the  slaves,  but  wishes  so 
to  limit  the  institution  that  it  shall  be  a  burden  and 
a  loss  to  those  who  hold  it.  For  if  the  principles  upon 
which  the  present  President  was  elected  should  prevail, 
and  the  slaves  not  freed,  the  institution  would  utterly 
impoverish  the  South ;  and  the  North  would  be  en- 
riched by  it.  It  is  our  duty  either  to  liberate  the 
slaves,  or  else  to  allow  Slavery  such  protection  and  ad- 
mission into  all  territories  as  will  keep  it  from  being  a 
danger  and  a  drag  upon  the  South.  I  fear  the  North 
is  anxious  to  preserve  Slavery  for  the  cotton  and  sugar 
it  brings ;  but  anxious  also  to  have  all  the  lands  and 
political  power,  without  which  Slavery  makes  every 
white  man  as  well  as  black  man  in  the  South  a  slave. 

You  have  no  right  to  leave  this  tree  on  their  lot 
girdled,  so  as  to  bear  them  no  fruit,  and  be  in  their 
way,  and  an  increasing  danger  also,  rotting  year  by 
year  for  the  blast  under  which  it  shall  fall  suddenly 
and  inevitably. 

My  fellow-men,  there   is   every  sign   that  our  arms 


MERCY,   AND   NOT   SACRIFICE.  85 

are  steadily  winning  their  way  into  the  South.  Let  us 
consider  gravely  what  it  is  we  are  carrying  South  as  we 
march  on.  One  thing  we  must  carry,  —  devastation. 
"We  are  far  yet  from  the  heart  of  the  South,  and  they 
know  little  of  the  South  who  do  not  know  that,  as  we 
approach  nearer,  the  tragedy  will  deepen :  our  army 
will  mark  its  track  in  blood,  and  find  ashes  where  fair 
cities  stood  hefore.  Now  I  do  not  say  that  all  this 
ought  not  to  take  place  if  it  is  necessary ;  there  are 
things  worse  than  such  devastation ;  but  I  do  say  that  in 
this  age  of  the  world  such  devastation  of  human  homes 
and  hearts  cannot  be  justified  unless  along  with  it  we 
bear  blessings  greater  than  the  devastation  is  evil. 

In  my  opinion,  there  is  not  a  feature  of  Christianity 
which  would  not  frown  upon  the  idea  that  the  sorrows 
which  our  victorious  advance  must  bring  upon  the 
South  can  be  justified  by  carrying  a  piece  of  bunting 
down  there,  or  the  mere  governmental  authority  it  rep- 
resents. If  this  should  prove  to  be,  what  Earl  Russell 
declared  it,  "a  struggle  for  power"  only,  the  verdict 
of  the  civilized  world  will  be, —  Shame!  Take  any  one 
who  perished  at  Fort  Donelson,  loyal  or  rebel,  and  place 
that  human  being,  with  God's  crown  of  intelligence 
upon  his  brow,  beside  that  mass  of  stone  and  brush- 
wood which  was  surrendered,  and  any  thinking  person 
will  know  which  is  of  more  importance,  the  mass  of 
brute  matter  which  human  hands  could  rear  in  a 
month,  or  that  immortal  being  of  heart  and  brain, 
which,  once  prostrated,  not  the  combined  skill  of  the 
world  can  rebuild. 


86  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

The  proverb  says,  "Faithful  are  the  wounds  of  a 
friend " ;  and  if  we  were  smiting  the  South  to  heal 
her  of  the  withering  curse  that  is  upon  her,  our 
wounds  will  be  far  more  friendly  than  all  those  weak 
compromises  and  indulgences  by  which  the  North  has 
for  years  helped  to  fasten  her  curse  upon  her.  An 
amnesty  for  the  South  leaving  her  Slavery  would  be 
the  bitterest  wrong  and  cruelty  we  could  inflict  on 
her. 

Humanity,  Christianity,  would  welcome  and  justify 
any  severity  necessary  to  relieve  the  South  of  that 
curse,  as  they  would  the  severity  of  the  surgeon's 
probe,  for  the  overbalancing  benefit  it  brings.  The 
friend  of  humanity  could  then  patiently  see  more  blood- 
shed than  the  land  has  yet  witnessed,  if  he  knew  that 
this  blood  was  shed  for  the  remission  of  the  nation's 
sin,  the  removal  of  its  pitiless  curse. 

And  yet,  what  are  we  actually  carrying  South  with 
our  arms  ?  After  the  surrender  of  Fort  Donelson,  the 
first  thing  done  was  to  run  up  the  United  States  ban- 
ner ;  the  second  thing  was  to  return  to  rebel  masters 
twelve  slaves  found  therein.  This  was  boasted  of  by 
a  Kentucky  Senator  in  the  Senate,  and  the  author  of 
the  deed  went  unrebuked.  But  we  got  through  him  at 
Shiloh  as  heavy  a  blow  as  those  twelve  negroes  got. 
"We  shall  find  that  all  the  orders  "  No.  3  "  will  come 
home  to  roost.  At  Port  Royal  a  negro,  deserted  by  his 
master,  came  within  bur  lines,  and,  addressing  Colonel 
Lee,  said,  "  Will  you  please,  sir,  tell  me  if  I  am  a  free- 


MERCY,  AND  NOT  SACRIFICE.  87 

man  ?  "     Colonel  Lee  was  dumb.     The  government  is 
dumb.*     As  yet  you,  my  countrymen,  are  dumb. 

Whatever  title  the  Southern  States  may  have  had 

*  The  following  touching  lyric  was  placed  in  my  hand,  soon  after  hear- 
ing of  this  incident,  by  one  who  has  already  given  us  that  which  is  worthy 
to  be  incorporated  with  the  "John  Brown  Song,"  as  the  "Battle  Hymn 
of  the  Kepublic." 

Tell  me,  master,  am  I  free  ? 

From  the  prison-land  I  come, 
From  a  wrecked  humanity, 

From  the  fable  of  a  home,  — 

From  the  market  where  my  wife, 

With  my  baby  at  her  breast, 
Faded  from  my  narrow  life, 

Kudely  bartered  and  possest. 

Masters,  ye  are  fighting  long, 

Well  your  trumpet-blast  we  know : 
Are  ye  come  to  right  a  wrong  ? 

Do  we  call  you  friend  or  foe  ? 

Will  ye  keep  me,  for  my  faith, 
From  the  hound  that  scents  my  track  ? 

From  the  riotous,  drunken  breath, 
From  the  murder  at  my  back  ? 

God  must  come,  for  whom  we  pray, 

Knowing  his  deliverance  true  ; 
Shall  our  men  be  left  to  say, 

He  must  work  it  free  of  you  ? 

Links  of  an  unsighted  chain 

Bound  the  spirit  of  our  braves ; 
Waiting  for  the  nobler  strain, 

Silence  told  him  we  were  slaves. 


88  THE   GOLDEN   HOUB. 

to  hold  slaves,  no  man  has  yet  been  bold  enough  to 
claim  that  the  United  States  has  a  title  to  hold  them ; 
yet  it  is  restraining  of  their  freedom  thousands  of  men 
as  free  as  the  President.  The  President  has  just  im- 
ported a  million  slaves  into  the  States  of  Georgia,  Flor- 
ida, and  South  Carolina.  A  pretty  big  beam,  I  think, 
the  Northern  eye  is  carrying,  as  it  goes  to  pull  out 
the  mote  in  the  Southern  eye !  Buchanan  announced 
that  the  Constitution  carries  Slavery  wherever  it  goes  : 
it  has  remained  for  the  first  Republican  government 
to  make  the  theory  fact.  But  is  to  do  this  worth  the 
he'art-breaks,  the  butchery,  by  which  alone  we  can 
march  South  ? 


XV. 

THE    CONSECRATION    OF    HEROISM. 

IN  the  old  Hebrew  Chronicles  it  is  related  that,  on 
one  occasion,  David  was  in  an  hold,  and  the  garrison 
of  the  Philistines  was  in  Bethlehem.  "  And  David 
longed,  and  said,  0  that  one  would  give  me  drink 
of  the  water  of  the  well  of  Bethlehem  which  is  by  the 
gate !  And  the  three  mighty  men  brake  through  the 
host  of  the  Philistines,  and  drew  water  out  of  the  well 
of  Bethlehem,  that  was  by  the  gate,  and  took  it,  and 


THE   CONSECRATION   OF   HEROISM.  89 

brought  it  to  David ;  nevertheless  he  would  not  drink 
thereof,  but  poured  it  out  unto  the  Lord.  And  he  said, 
Be  it  far  from  me,  0  Lord,  that  I  should  do  this  ;  is  not 
this  the  blood  of  the  men  that  went  in  jeopardy  of 
their  lives?  Therefore  he  would  not  drink  it." 

Thus  to  all  noble  minds  heroism  is  forever  conse- 
crated, and  consecrates  all  it  touches.  The  commonest 
things  have  a  new  and  higher  value,  when  they  become 
associated  with  deeds  of  devotion  and  courage.  The 
cross,  to  which  the  Christian  world  clings,  was  not  a 
whit  more  respectable  than  a  gallows,  until  a  Hero's 
blood  consecrated  it. 

Our  countrymen,  our  companions,  friends,  and  rela- 
tives, have  gone  forth,'  in  jeopardy  of  their  lives,  to 
recover  for  this  nation  certain  forts,  arsenals,  territo- 
ries,— for  which  the  nation  longed.  This  nation  does 
not  yet  see  that  when  these  forts  and  States  are  recov- 
ered for  us,  stained  with  the  ruddy  blood  of  thousands 
of  its  noble  youth,  —  each  the  monument  of  fallen  he- 
roes,— they  will  seem  very  different  from  forts  and  arse- 
nals ;  that,  if  thus  recovered,  they  will  be  altars  con- 
secrated to  the  humanity  which  died  to  rescue  them, 
flaming  with  the  fires  of  Justice  and  Liberty. 

The  first  American  Revolution  began  as  a  protest 
against  a  tax  upon  tea  and  a  few  other  articles.  Even 
after  Concord  and  Lexington  the  removal  of  a  few 
pence  from  the  duty  on  tea  would  have  stopped  the 
war.  At  this  distance  that  looks  to  us  as  a  very  insig- 
nificant fight :  one  might  almost  call  it  a  tempest  in  a 
tea-pot. 


90  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

But  so  did  it  not  remain.  The  tea  reddened  with 
the  blood  of  noble  hearts,  as  did  the  water  of  Beth- 
lehem when  it  came  to  the  king.  Battle  after  battle 
came ;  men  went  on  to  death  as  to  their  beds ;  and 
from  the  fires  of  war  emerged  the  grand  figure  of 
Independence.  Then  all  the  duties  might  have  been 
taken  off,  but  America  would  not  have  drank  to  the 
health  of  a  tyrant  what  had  now  become  the  blood  of 
her  noble  sons ;  nothing  less  than  entire  independence 
was  worthy  so  costly  a  libation. 

In  the  month  of  August,  1776,*  immediately  after 
the  defeat  of  the  Americans  on  Long  Island,  and 
whilst  that  disaster  was  not  only  demoralizing  the  army 
under  Washington,  but  spreading  dismay  and  conster- 
nation among  the  most  resolute  of  the  advocates  of 
Independence,  General  Howe,  wishing  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  terror  which  victory  inspires,  and  per- 
suading himself  that  the  Americans,  disheartened  by 
so  many  checks,  would  be  more  modest  in  their  pre- 
tensions, despatched  General  Sullivan  to  Congress,  with 
a  message  purporting  that,  though  he  could  not  con- 
sistently treat  with  that  assembly  in  the  character  they 
had  assumed,  yet  he  would  gladly  confer  with  some 
of  their  members  in  their  private  capacity,  and  would 

*  This  incident  was  briefly  alluded  to  in  "  The  Rejected  Stone  "  ;  the 
number  of  inquiries  which  have  been  made  of  me  concerning  it,  and  its 
appropriateness  to  the  argument  of  this  chapter,  encourage  me  to  con- 
dense the  account  from  Carlo  Botta's  History,  in  which  alone  I  have  been 
able  to  find  it,  though  it  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  striking  of  our  Rev- 
olutionary records. 


THE   CONSECRATION   OF   HEROISM.  91 

meet  them  at  any  place  they  would  appoint.  He 
informed  them  that  he  was  empowered,  with  the  Ad- 
miral, his  brother,  to  terminate  the  contest  between 
Great  Britain  and  America  upon  conditions  equally 
advantageous  to  both.  He  assured  them  that,  if  they 
were  inclined  to  enter  into  an  agreement,  much  might 
be  granted  them  which  they  had  not  required.  He  con- 
cluded by  saying,  that,  should  the  conference  produce 
the  probability  of  an  accommodation,  the  authority  of 
Congress  would  be  acknowledged,  in  order  to  render 
the  treaty  valid  and  complete  in  every  respect.  To  this 
Congress  made  answer,  through  General  Sullivan,  that 
the  Congress  of  the  Free  and  Independent  States  of 
America  could  not,  consistently  with  the  trust  reposed 
in  them,  send  their  members  to  confer  with  any  one 
whomsoever,  otherwise  than  in  their  public  capacity. 
But  that,  as  they  desired  that  peace  might  be  con- 
cluded upon  equitable  conditions,  they  would  depute 
a  committee  of  their  body  to  learn  what  proposals 
they  had  to  offer.  The  Deputies  appointed  by  Con- 
gress to  hear  the  propositions  of  the  British  Commis- 
sioners (General  Howe  and  Admiral  Lord  Howe)  were 
Benjamin  Franklin,  John  Adams,  and  Edward  Rut- 
ledge,  all  three  zealous  advocates  of  Independence. 
The  interview  took  place  on  September  llth,  on  Sta- 
ten  Island,  opposite  Amboy,  where  the  British  general 
had  his  head-quarters. 

The  result  of  the  interview  showed  to  what  a  height 
the  war,  which  began  about  a  paltry  tax,  had  risen  un- 


92  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

der  the  tuition  of  Heroism.  The  British  commanders 
offered  every  concession,  with  complete  amnesties  and 
indemnities,  provided  only  that  they  would  lay  down 
their  arms  and  submit  to  the  authority  of  England. 
But  the  Americans,  staggering  though  they  were  un- 
der a  disastrous  defeat,  —  dark,  too,  as  was  the  pros- 
pect of  three  millions  fighting  against  the  strongest 
power  on  earth,  —  utterly  and  firmly  refused  to  submit 
to  anything  less  than  their  entire  independence. 

This  was  England's  last  effort  to  settle  the  difficulty 
by  negotiation.  Immediately  thereafter  she  put  forth 
her  whole  strength  to  compel  submission :  but  had 
England  only  known  it,  she  was  conquered  already, 
when  in  the  midst  of  darkness  and  disaster  there 
remained  to  confront  her  a  spirit  too  noble  to  com- 
promise Liberty,  too  royal  to  cool  even  the  fevered 
lips  of  war  with  an  ignoble  peace,  and  offer  to  Des- 
potism the  blood  of  heroes. 

Our  public  speakers  know  very  well  that,  in  speaking 
of  "  the  Union  cemented  by  the  blood  of  our  fathers," 
they  touch  a  chord  in  the  popular  heart  which  never 
fails  to  respond.  That  is  because  it  is  a  true  chord. 
Every  river  and  valley  of  it  has  been  touched  with 
the  chrism  of  self-sacrifice. 

But  here  is  more  blood  poured  out :  what  will  that 
cement  ?  Is  it  only  to  cement  the  broken  walls  of 
Sumter?  Is  it  only  to  recover  a  section  for  freemen 
to  be  tarred  and  feathered  in,  —  a  Congress  for  honest 
Senators  to  be  assassinated  in  ?  Is  that  what  your  son 


THE   CONSECRATION   OF  HEROISM.  93 

has  gone  to  cement  with  his  blood  ?  Are  we  giving  up 
the  best  blood  in  our  land  that  our  flag  may  again 
unfurl  its  heaven-born  colors  for  the  protection  of  the 
chain  and  the  lash  and  the  block  where  immortal 
beings  are  sold  as  cattle? 

There  is  where  we  started:  the  old  Union  just  as 
it  was,  with  every  chain  in  it,  every  shamble,  every 
scourge,  every  barbarism,  —  that  is  what  our  own 
valiant  men  brake  the  ranks  of  the  Philistines  to  get 
for  us.  But  already  things  give  signs  of  change. 
People  are  saying,  This  war  will  be  sure  to  end 
Slavery,  —  the  wish  being  father  to  the  thought. 
That  is  only  the  first  flush  on  the  water.  Let  us  see 
a  little  more  heroic  blood  shed,  and  people  will  say, 
This  war  shall  end  Slavery. 

A  man  who  announces  —  and  this  is  said  with  all 
deference  to  the  Secretary  of  State  —  that  a  bloody 
revolution  shall  sweep  over  a  country,  and  leave  that 
country,  and  every  human  being  in  it,  in  the  same 
condition  as  before,  must  be  in  the  counsel  of  that 
highly  conservative  angel  at  the  Creation  who  was 
seized  with  a  dreadful  apprehension  lest  the  very 
foundations  of  Chaos  should  be  unsettled. 

To  expect  that  this  revolution,  whilst  working 
changes  similar  to  those  which  revolution  has  wrought 
in  all  history,  will  leave  Slavery  as  it  was  before  in 
the  land,  is  to  expect  a  conflagration  enveloping  a 
house  to  burn  up  the  stone  and  iron,  and  leave  the 
wood-work  standing. 


94  THE   GOLDEN  HOUB. 

XVI. 

A   POSSIBLE   BABYLON. 

WHO  can  misread  or  doubt  the  prophecies  written 
broadly  over  all  the  mountains,  prairies,  savannahs, 
lakes,  and  rivers  of  this  superb  continent?  What  heart 
can  have  a  misgiving  that  these  grandeurs  have  been 
prepared  for  a  race  of  slaves  ?  Does  Niagara  thunder 
of  the  great  era  of  slave-coffles  ?  Does  the  Mississippi 
suggest  a  race  of  clay-eaters  on  its  shores  ?  Do  the  great 
rivets  between  North  and  South,  the  Rocky,  the  Alle- 
ghany,  the  Blue  Ridge  mountains,  foretell  that  the  rivets 
of  moral  and  political  union  on  this  continent  are  to 
be  perpetual  fear  on  one  side  and  menace  on  the  other, 
•as  they  have  been  for  years,  —  a  union  crumbling 
through  very  rottenness? 

Every  hill-top  in  America  is  a  Pisgah,  from  which 
can  be  seen  the  Promised  Land  of  Liberty,  which  this 
nation  is  sure  sooner  or  later  to  enter. 

But  meanwhile  there  are  dreary  forty-year  wander- 
ings in  desert  places,  which  may  have  to  come  ere 
we  are  worthy  to  enter  our  Canaan  of  Freedom  and 
Prosperity.  Worse  than  all,  there  is  a  possible  Baby- 
lonish captivity  toward  which  it  were  well  for  this  gen- 
eration anxiously  to  look.  The  fearful  retribution 
which  befell  Israel  for  its  idolatry  is  never  absent  from 
the  paths  of  such  nations  as  turn  aside  from  their 


A  POSSIBLE   BABYLON.  95 

owii  God  to  worship  alien  idols.  Slavery  is  for  this 
nation  the  alien  idol,  and  its  worship  may  yet  have 
to  be  burnt  out  of  us  by  a  similar  fiery  trial. 

There  is  a  current  phrase  which  says,  "  This  war  is 
bound  to  be  the  death  of  Slavery."  It  seems  to  me  a 
very  thoughtless  speech.  How  do  we  expect  emanci- 
pation to  come  ?  Is  it  to  be  as  a  shower  of  gold  ? 
The  proverb  says,  "  What  will  you  have,  quoth  God ; 
pay  for  it  and  take  it."  We  shall  have  freedom  from 
our  national  curse,  not  by  any  luck,  but  when  we 
are  up  to  paying  the  fair  price ;  if  there  is  enough 
humanity  and  common  sense  in  the  country  to  destroy 
Slavery,  it  will  be  destroyed,  and  not  otherwise.  No 
doubt  Slavery  will  end,  but  this  government  may 
never  live  to  see  the  day. 

We  actually  hear  people  saying,  "  When  this  war 
is  ended,  we  can  have  a  convention,  and  agree  upon 
some  plan  for  the  gradual  abolition  of  Slavery." 

When  this  war  is  ended!  This  is  much  as  when 
Paddy,  after  vainly  endeavoring  to  put  on  a  pair  of 
new  boots,  remarked  that  he  feared  he  would  never  be 
able  to  get  those  boots  on  until  he  had  worn  them  a 
day  or  two. 

Perhaps  the  highest  secret  which  the  Oriental  phi- 
losophy hit  upon  was  the  peristaltic  movement  of  the 
universe.  The  idea  was  that  the  visible  universe  was 
the  integument  of  a  great  living  soul,  and  that,  in  its 
onward  progress,  the  vital  form  from  time  to  time  shed, 


96  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

as  a  snake  its  skin,  this  integument,  whose  spots  were 
galaxies. 

As  long  as  the  skin  is  alive  and  adjusted  to  its  move- 
ment, the  snake  bears  it  onward ;  but  when  a  newer  one 
has  been  formed  underneath,  the  snake  pauses,  con- 
tracts, and  the  old  skin  shrivels;  one  full-length  stretch, 
and  it  is  left  in  the  path. 

Onward  by  the  perfect  law  the  living  essence  of 
Society  moves  also :  the  customs,  creeds,  institutions, 
of  any  age  are  the  spots  of  its  variegated  skin.  Bright 
and  beautiful  are  these  scales  when  vital  and  necessary. 
Presently  they  get  rusty,  and  must  be  shed.  Then  all 
the  living  forces  contract,  and  the  old  is  cast.  Nothing 
not  dead  can  ever  be  sloughed  off.  Revolutions  such  as 
Christianity,  Protestantism,  that  which  secured  Ameri- 
can Independence,  that  which  is  now  abolishing  Slav- 
ery, are  the  successive  shrivellings  of  the  rusty  cuticle, 
as  the  living  body  of  Society  moves  onward. 

The  former  status  of  this  country  can  never  be 
restored,  more  than  a  snake  can  creep  back  into  and 
inhabit  the  skin  it  has  shed  on  the  way-side.  But, 
reader,  have  you  not  in  your  life  found  some  poor 
snake  still  partially  fettered  to  its  "  body  of  death," 
—  snake  in  motionless  distress,  which,  having  stretched 
out  from  its  shrivelled  skin,  must  needs  stretch  back 
and  wait  ?  The  last  state  of  that  snake  is  worse  than 
the  first  for  a  time. 

In  this  revolution  we  may  get  free.  But  if  we  do 
not,  before  any  truce  comes,  cast  the  old  Slavery-skin 


A  POSSIBLE   BABYLON.  97 

of  this  nation,  we  shall  go  back  for  a  while  into  a  state 
of  things  which  even  the  Democrats  would  shudder 
to  behold.  If,  now  that  Slavery  and  Freedom  are,  by 
the  new  power  opened,  for  the  first  time  left  to  the 
choice  of  the  American  people,  they  shall  deliberately 
select  Slavery,  Slavery  they  will  get  with  a  vengeance  ! 
For  tilings  would  have  to  be  worse  to  be  better.  "We 
should  witness  a  rule  of  Slavery  so  galling  and  fear- 
ful, that  the  North  would  be  scourged  into  a  revolution. 

There  is  no  St.  Patrick  who  can  rid  this  land  of 
old-line  Democrats.  Now  and  then  there  is  a  cry  that 
the  Democratic  party  is  dead ;  and  if  it  were  not  in 
league  with  the  Devil,  if  bullets  could  kill  it,  it  would 
have  been  dead  long  ago.  In  a  play  called  "  The 
Vampyre,"  the  voracious  sucker  in  human  shape,  who 
draws  the  life  out  of  fair  virgins  whilst  they  sleep,  is 
repeatedly  slain ;  but  in  dying  he  always  makes  a 
pathetic  request  to  have  his  corpse  put  at  some  certain 
place,  —  a  place  where  the  moonlight  will,  he  knows, 
fall  upon  it.  Whenever  the  moonlight  touches  this 
Vampyre  in  human  shape,  he  revives.  Now,  this  moon- 
shine —  which  is  a  compromise  between  night  and  day 
—  is  a  fair  symbol  of  that  which  never  fails  to  resus- 
citate Democracy.  No  matter  how  dead  you  may  fancy 
it,  you  have  only  to  heed  its  last  dying  request  for  a 
compromise,  and  under  that  moonshine  its  resuscita- 
tion is  inevitable. 

The  very  delay  in  dealing  with  Slavery  has  furnished 
sufficient  moonshine,  not  to  say  lunacy,  to  stir  the 


98  THE   GOLDEN  HOUIJ. 

Yampyre  with  a  throb  of  life.  That  party  is  preparing 
to  go  before  the  people  in  the  forthcoming  campaign. 
They  will  take  the  Van  Wyck  Report  in  one  hand,  and 
the  Washburne  Report  in  the  other,  (for  they  know  how 
to  make  the  truth  lie  like  the  Devil ! )  and  they  will 
say,  from  every  stump  in  the  country :  "  Feller-citi- 
zens !  What  did  you  git  by  leaving  the  old  Dimocratic 
party?  Fust,  you  got  a  civil  war,  plunging  into  fra- 
ternal fratricide  the  country  that  under  Frank  Pierce 
and  Jim  Buckhannon  was  peaceful,  united,  gellorious, 
and  happy.  Second,  you  got  untold  millions  of  debt. 
Third,  you  got  corruption  enough  in  all  the  branches  of 
the  government  to  fill  these  here  2,000  pages  of  inves- 
tigating reports.  That 's  what  you  got  by  this  Republi- 
can freak  of  yours !  Feller-citizens,  do  you  want  to  see 
the  bloody  clouds  of  civil  war  roll  away  before  the 
rising  sun  of  harmony  and  union,  one  and  inseparable 
now  and  forever  ?  Jest  Tote  for  the  regular  nominees 
of  the  Diraocratic  party  !  Now,  boys,  three  cheers 
for  McClellan!" 

I  fear  the  appeal  will  be  successful ;  and  if  so,  the 
little  finger  of  the  man  so  elected  will  be  heavier  than 
Buchanan's  loins. 

The  other  day  I  was  reading  in  the  Satanic  Press 
the  programme  of  the  Democracy,  of  which  the  above 
is  a  free  translation,  and  its  editorial  concluded  with 
saying,  — "  To  this  appeal  the  masses  will  lie  sure  to 
respond."  By  a  typographical  error,  or  the  correc- 
tion of  some  shrewd  printer,  the  m  got  off  of  masses, 


A   POSSIBLE   BABYLON.  99 

and  on  to  the  preceding  word ;  and  so  it  read  "  them 
asses  will  be  sure  to  respond."  It  was  very  bad  gram- 
mar, but  I  think  I  never  read  so  sensible  a  sentence  in 
that  paper  before.  It  is  not  the  masses,  but  them  asses, 
that  we  have  to  fear. 

Let  us  not  trust  the  sham  Democracy  of  this  country 
because  it  now  professes  to  support  the  war.  The  other 
evening,  when,  at  a  Democratic  meeting  in  Cincin- 
nati, the  corpse  of  the  Vampyre  was  stirred,  the  assem- 
bly gave  vent  to  the  natural  disgust  by  simultaneously 
ejaculating,  Pugh  ! 

Much  to  our  surprise,  an  individual  whose  name  is  so 
pronounced,  supposing  himself  called  upon,  made  a 
speech.  The  Hon.  George  E.  Pugh  is  the  ablest  Demo- 
crat in  the  West,  and  would  so  stand  with  his  party 
if  he  were  not  a  trifle  too  rash.  When  traitors  in  the 
West  propose  to  aid  the  rebellion,  they  first  inquire  if 
Lawyer  Pugh  is  in  good  health ;  and  in  so  many  cases 
of  this  kind  has  he  appeared,  that  it  is  not  strange  if 
he  should  be  in  party  limbo.  But  since  Garrett  Davis 
menaced  the  government  with  resistance  from  Ken- 
tucky, the  sham  Democracy  of  the  West  has  come  far 
enough  out  to  lay  hold  upon  Pugh. 

At  the  assembly  of  Resurrectionists  to  which  I  have 
referred,  this  ex-Senator  said  these  words :  — 

"  The  Democracy  has  voted  men  and  money  to  sup- 
port this  government  during  the  war ;  and  the  reason 
why  they  have  done  so  is,  that  they  have  intended  to 
have  that  government  in  their  own  hands  at  the  next 


100  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

administration.  In  my  opinion  the  government  will 
soon  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Democracy,  and  then,  and 
not  till  then,  will  the  old  flag,  with  its  thirty-four  stars, 
represent  a  perfect  Union." 

That  is,  the  Democracy,  though  not  regarding  the 
government,  under  a  constitutionally-elected  Republi- 
can administration,  as  a  bonafide  affair,  will  yet  support 
it  so  long  as  there  lingers  with  them  a  hope  of  binding 
the  Union  as  a  dead  Hector  to  the  chariot  of  Slavery. 

"  You  aristocrats,"  says  a  Jacobin  in  Paris,  "  are 
frightened,  as  you  say,  lest  we  should  injure  your 
property :  we  shall  guard  your  property  with  the  ut- 
most care,  in  the  full  expectation  that  it  is  soon  to 
be  our  own." 

But  the  proprietors  knew  that  behind  each  of  these 
words  was  a  sword  and  a  torch,  and  that,  when  it 
became  certain  that  the  Jacobin  could  not  get  the 
property,  his  sword  and  torch  would  appear. 

The  people  are  to  be  reverenced,  but  cautiously. 
When  you  can  get  a  real  people,  their  voice  is  the  voice 
of  God  ;  nay,  when  they  are  animated  with  a  great, 
all-compelling  purpose,  they  are  the  myriad-fingered 
hand  of  God,  fashioning  the  Earth  according  to  the 
pattern  shown  in  the  mount. 

But  from  this  height  there  is  a  precipitous  descent. 
The  people  may  be  demoralized ;  then  they  are  not  a 
people,  but  merely  the  rabble.  Fearfully  easy  and  swift 
is  this  recoil  sometimes.  To-day  they  sing  Hosanna, 


A  POSSIBLE  BABYLON.  101 

and  spread  their  garments  in  the  path  before  the 
advance  of  the  Highest ;  to-morrow  the  same  voices 
sharply  cry,  Crucify  him ! 

This  Yampyre  whom  they  would  elect  would  fasten 
upon  this  nation,  and  suck  every  free  and  noble  drop 
out  of  its  heart.  The  sacred  guaranties  of  Liberty  and 
forms  of  law  would  be  suspended  then,  not  for  the  de- 
fence of  Freedom,  but  to  crush  out  the  soul  of  Free- 
dom. Slavery  would  be  the  tyrant,  and  dungeons 
would  be  filled  with  those  who  uttered  a  word  or  did 
aught  against  Slavery.  Those  weapons  of  martial 
law,  far  more  fearful  than  any  artillery,  may  each  be 
wheeled  around  against  the  champions  of  Freedom  ; 
and  there  are  men  not  very  far  from  a  possible  Pres- 
idency who  would  use  them  all  to  strangle  free 
thought  and  free  speech  in  this  country. 

The  Babylon  whose  captivity  we  have  to  fear  is  not 
Disunion ;  if  that  were  the  alternative,  it  would  not  be 
so  fearful.  But  there  are  too  many  indications  that 
the  people  of  the  North  so  worship  the  Union,  and 
regard  their  trade  as  so  involved  in  it,  that,  if  they  can- 
not win  it  by  fair  means,  they  will  by  foul.  There  is 
no  doubt  but  they  will  fight  and  suffer  long  and  gal- 
lantly to  recover  the  Union ;  but  when  it  is  decided 
that  they  cannot  have  it  with  honor,  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  they  can  be  demoralized  enough  to  pay  the  price 
of  their  honor,  to  compromise  for  it. 

But  this  would  only  be  a  thorny,  crooked  way  to  the 
same  goal,  the  straight  way  to  which  God  opens  before 


102  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

its  to-day.  It  would  not  be  long  before  the  very  men 
who  now  think  that  they  would  be  willing  to  have  the 
Union  with  Slavery  in  it  back  again,  would  shriek  out 
Anathema  Maranatha  upon  every  man  who  had  a  hand 
in  such  a  result. 


XVII. 

THE    DIAL    OF    GROWTHS. 

IN  the  Palais-Royal  Gardens  at  Paris  there  is  a  dial, 
with  a  small  cannon  attached.  When  the  sun  rises  to 
the  meridian  height,  the  cannon  is  fired,  a  sun-glass 
having  been  so  arranged  as  to  concentrate  the  rays  for 
that  purpose. 

Not  far  from  this  is  another  dial,  arranged  on  the 
same  principle  with  the  celebrated  one  made  by  Lin- 
naeus at  Upsal :  flowers  there  are  which  close,  and 
others  which  unfold,  at  various  periods  of  the  day,  and 
thus  the  hours  are  marked. 

Thus  the  same  sun  which  in  one  spot  announces  its 
ascent  to  the  zenith  by  the  cannon's  roar,  in  another 
noiselessly  traces  its  progress  and  culmination  by  the 
closing  up  of  old  and  the  unfolding  of  new  growths. 

Ideas,  sun-like,  have  also  their  dawn,  their  ascent, 
and  their  culmination.  One  world  lies  about  us  where 


THE  DIAL   OF   GROWTHS.  103 

ideas  proclaim  their  advance  through  the  grim  mouth 
of  the  cannon.  Powers,  parties,  interests,  have  so  set 
their  glasses,  that  fiery  Liberty,  vivifying  Equality,  radi- 
ant Fraternity,  rising,  dawn  over  dawn,  upon  the  world, 
are  responded  to  by  the  roar  of  battle.  But  softly 
about  us  lies  another  world,  in  which  advancing  Truth 
traces  its  steps  of  light  in  the  closing  up  of  old  errors 
and  the  unfolding  of  new  truths. 

From  the  noisy  thunders  of  the  cannon-dial,  —  from 
the  din  of  the  voices  which  cry,  Lo  here  !  Lo  there !  — 
let  us  turn  for  a  while,  and  trace  so  far  as  we  can 
the  hour  as  it  stands  in  that  kingdom  which  cometh 
not  with  outward  show. 

The  leaders  and  masses  enlisted  in  the  Southern 
rebellion  have  no  more  to  do  with  that  rebellion  than 
the  fantoccini  of  a  puppet-show  have  to  do  with  their 
own  attitudes  and  dances. 

The  present  attitude  of  Slavery  is  the  direct  and 
inevitable  result  of  the  attitude  of  Liberty.  The  Sa- 
tanic press  throughout  the  country  implores  that  the 
antislavery  agitators  shall  be  sent  to  Fort  Warren ; 
Parson  Brownlow  wishes  to  bury  them  in  a  ditch ;  the 
allegation  being,  that  they  have  caused  the  rebellion,  and 
are  making  a  union  after  the  old  pattern  impossible. 
Now,  this  is  about  as  far  as  the  Devil  ever  sees.  He  is 
shrewd  enough  up  to  a  certain  limit ;  after  that  he  is  as 
blind  as  a  bat.  It  is  as  certainly  true  that  antislavery 
agitation  caused  this  rebellion,  as  that  Slavery  caused 


104  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

that  agitation.  It  were  easy  to  name  one  hundred 
brains  which  have  been  set  a-thinking  in  this  country 
during  this  generation,  and  to  say  with  truth,  if  God 
had  only  seen  fit  to  keep  these  hundred  brains  out  of 
the  world,  or  to  have  consulted  Kentucky  as  to  how  he 
should  fashion  them,  there  would  have  been  no  war 
now.  We  should  have  gone  on  enjoying  our  country, 
our  cotton,  sugar,  and  the  rest,  as  happy  a  nation  of 
maggots  as  ever  swarmed  in  an  old  cheese. 

In  the  eyes  of  those  who  have  a  doubt  whether  that 
kind  of  life  constitutes  the  whole  duty  and  chief  end 
of  man,  the  Abolitionists  can  desire  no  fairer  laurel 
for  their  brows  than  that  through  them  streamed  such 
fiery  rays  of  Liberty,  that  Slavery  had  no  choice  but  to 
close  up  like  a  deadly  flower  before  unfolding  Justice, 
or  else  respond  to  these  noonday  fires  with  the  cannon. 
The  "  Rebellion  Record  "  reports  that  the  first  gun  of 
this  war  was  fired  last  year  at  Charleston :  the  Muse  of 
History  will  write  that  the  first  gun  was  fired  by  Wil- 
liam Lloyd  Garrison  in  Baltimore,  many  years  ago ; 
the  shell  he  touched  off  was  a  long  time  on  its  way, 
and  only  lately  exploded  in  the  election  of  President 
Lincoln,  who  was  sent  to  Washington  as  an  idea,  and 
who  has  been,  and  will  be,  treated  by  the  South  as 
an  idea.  Tliai  election  was  an  act  of  war  upon  Slavery, 
—  all  the  more  formidable  because  constitutional. 

It  is  only  in  crystals  that  one  sees  plainly  any  min- 
gled substance  which  is  inferior.  You  cannot  see  a 
epeck  of  dirt  in  the  heart  of  a  pebble,  but  you  can  see 


THE  DIAL  OF   GROWTHS.  105 

it  clearly  in  the  heart  of  a  pure  crystal.  It  is  so  with 
the  evil  at  the  heart  of  this  country.  The  wrongs 
which  for  ages  lay  unobserved  in  the  stony  heart  of 
absolutism,  preserved  now  in  the  centre  of  a  republic, 
discolor  all  the  rays  shining  through  it.  Our  faith  and 
courage  in  these  times  will  be  in  proportion  to  our 
realization  of  the  fact  that  our  trouble,  though  it  should 
end  in  failure,  is  a  sign  not  of  weakness  so  much  as  of 
strength.  Were  the  age  meaner,  its  claim  would  not  be, 
as  it  is  now,  beyond  the  ordinary  satisfaction  of  circum- 
stances. Had  the  evils  which  afflict  us  a  tongue,  it 
would  say :  "  Surely  you  have  grown  very  sophisticated 
and  fastidious.  Read  your  school  histories  over  again, 
and  see  what  age  was  exempt  from  injustice  and  vio- 
lence, war  and  Slavery.  Are  you  not  making  in  this 
generation  a  great  deal  of  noise  over  evils  that  your 
ancestors  sat  very  quietly  under  ?  "  Certainly  we  are. 
We  stand  upon  our  vantage  as  proudly  as  did  the 
young  Goethe,  of  whom  it  is  related  that,  when  six 
years  old,  he  plagued  his  mother  with  questions  as  to 
whether  the  stars  would  perform  for  him  all  that,  ac- 
cording to  some  fortune-teller,  they  had  promised  at  his 
birth.  "Why,"  said  his  mother,  "  must  you  have  the 
assistance  of  the  stars,  when  other  people  get  on  very 
well  without  ?  "  To  this  the  terrible  child  replied  : 
"  But  I  am  not  to  be  satisfied  with  what  does  for  other 
people."  So  the  humblest  man  in  Christendom  to-day 
puts  his  foot  upon  such  a  government  as  Jesus  and 
Paul  rested  quietly  under  ;  so  the  poorest  American 

5* 


106  THE   GOLDEN  HOUK. 

is  too  high  to  be  satisfied  with  what  suits  an  Austrian. 
Centuries  of  rain  and  sunshine  are  not  wasted  on  the 
vineyard  of  God,  where  nations  of  men  climb  to 
clusters.  Therefore,  although  the  country  was  never 
so  disturbed  before  in  its  immediate  interests,  it  was 
never  higher  than  now.  This  sundering  of  a  great  Con- 
federacy,— this  panic  fallen  upon  all  our  material  inter- 
ests,—  this  division  of  the  large  church  bodies,  —  all 
testify  gloriously  how  large  a  price  a  young  nation  is 
willing  to  pay  for  a  principle.  Never  more  fitly  could 
it  be  called  a  chosen  people  of  God  than  now,  when  it 
says,  "  Yes,  we  are  ready  to  press  out  even  into  a  forty- 
years  wilderness,  following  the  guiding  pillar  of  Lib- 
erty, whether  it  turn  to  us  its  fiery  or  its  clouded 
side ! " 

The  cannon's  roar  to-day,  then,  proclaims  Liberty 
radiant  in  the  heavens.  America  is  assailed  only  be- 
cause she  has  turned  from  Slavery,  and  pressed  for- 
ward to  touch  the  vesture's  hem  of  Freedom.  That 
was  her  only  crime.  Then  let  the  prophets  be  stoned  ; 
let  those  who  proclaim  that  the  axe  must  and  shall 
be  laid  to  the  root  of  the  tree  be  slain,  and  the  head 
of  Radicalism  be  brought  on  a  charger  to  the  Herodias 
of  Democracy  !  "When  the  Voice  in  the  Wilderness  is 
hushed,  the  Voice  in  Jerusalem  breaks  out. 

Here,  then,  in  our  Dial  of  Growths,  is  the  first  hour 
traced, — the  nightshade  of  a  fatal  and  ignoble  peace 
in  the  midst  of  crime  closes.  Far  nobler  this  blood-red 
flower  of  war ! 


THE   DIAL   OF   GROWTHS.  107 

Again,  I  see  fast  closing  beneath  the  glow  that  old 
atheism  which  has  fancied  that  this  world  was  not  gov- 
erned by  the  laws  of  God.  It  was  said  by  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, that  "  the  king  of  Sicily  had  reduced  atheism 
to  a  system  of  government."  That  king  might  cer- 
tainly, at  any  time  in  the  last  twenty  years,  have  sued 
the  United  States  government  for  an  infraction  of  his 
patent. 

And  the  government  was  so  because  the  people  were 
so.  Would  a  people  ever  dream  of  disregarding  habit- 
ually laws  in  which  they  had  faith  as  involving  interests 
of  life  and  death?  Would  they  eat  poisons,  launch 
ships  without  compasses,  leap  over  precipices  ?  That 
is  just  what  we  have  been  doing  in  the  real  world,  — 
the  world  where  gravitation  takes  the  form  of  justice. 
And  now  comes  the  severe  experience  which  shows 
us  that  the  Golden  Rule  is  not  only  a  moral  but  a 
physical  law ;  that  these  invisible  laws  which  are  called 
moral  are  not  abstractions,  the  violations  of  which  are 
to  end  in  a  grand  scenic  display  of  Zamiel  with  red 
lights  in  the  future  world,  but  laws  which  encircle 
the  world  above  and  below,  and  govern  it  infallibly  in 
every  instant ;  and  that  no  wrong  is  without  its  pen- 
alty on  the  moment.  Our  nation's  crime  is  to-day  its 
own  retribution ;  the  stain  on  our  flag  has  become  a 
plague-spot  on  the  body.  And  upon  those  in  our  land 
who  most  abetted  the  wrong  the  retribution  is  heaviest. 

There  were  sundry  atheistic  institutions  in  our  land, 
calling  themselves  Tract  and  Missionary  Societies :  these, 


108  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

simply  for  lucre  and  worldly  strength,  refused  to  listen 
to  the  cries  or  sobs  of  four  millions  of  their  brethren,  — 
consented  that  they  should  be  sold  into  Egypt.  Now 
come  the  great  hails  which  sweep  away  the  refuges  of 
lies ;  and  these  very  societies  and  churches  which  most 
failed  to  rescue  those  torn  and  bleeding  sheep  of  Christ's 
fold,  are  the  most  sundered  and  ruined.  They  laid  up 
their  treasures  where  Confederates  break  through  and 
steal.  The  most  flourishing  societies  and  churches  now 
are  those  which  rebuked  slavery  too  sternly  to  have 
any  possessions  in  the  South  to  be  lost. 

Trade  has  also  learned  its  lesson.  We  had,  in  the 
times  of  Henry  Clay,  memorials  circulated  through 
the  North,  praying  Congress  to  have  the  discussion  of 
Slavery  in  its  halls  suppressed.  They  were  signed 
principally  by  merchants  with  large  Southern  trade. 
In  some  cities,  however,  there  were  found  merchants 
who  would  not  sign  away  their  independence  for  South- 
ern custom.  These  the  pro-slavery  papers  were  swift 
in  parading  as  the  enemies  of  the  South,  and  they 
suffered  by  the  withdrawal  of  Southern  custom.  The 
South  dealt  more  largely  than  ever  with  its  "  friends." 
The  others  had  to  reorganize  their  trade :  forced  to 
plant  their  business  entirely  in  the  North,  those  firms 
are  to-day  secure ;  they  have  no  dreary  account  of 
irrecoverable  thousands  with  Southern  dealers.  Of  all 
such  customers  they  were  long  ago  relieved  by  their 
compliant  neighbors,  now  groaning  under  the  seques- 
tration of  their  property  in  the  South. 


THE  DIAL   OF   GROWTHS.  109 

And  we  may  rest  assured  that  all  who  have  woven 
into  their  lives  and  interests  rotten  and  blood-rusted 
threads,  will  now  see  the  tissue  torn  to  tatters  under 
the  blasts  which  attend  this  judgment-day. 

Atheism,  then,  — the  disbelief  in  the  reality  of  Divine 
laws,  —  can  never  again  rule  in  church  and  trade : 
they  will  believe,  though  for  a  while  it  will  be  only  to 
"  believe  and  tremble." 

Let  us  hope  also  that  the  day  has  advanced  enough 
to  close  up  that  old  poisonous  blossom  Compromise, 
and  that  the  new  hour  is  opening  Truth.  Ah,  how 
have  we  needed  the  snow-white  petals  of  this  flower, 
in  place  of  that  compliant  trailing  weed ! 

A  lion  on  a  plain  was  taunted  by  a  serpent,  which 
was  on  a  high,  steep  rock,  with  his  inability  to  climb 
to  an  equal  height.  The  lion  answered,  "  I  might  like 
you  have  risen,  if  like  you  I  had  crawled."  What 
was  all  this  prosperity,  this  wealth,  this  spread-eagle 
nationality ;  the  first  untainted  breath  sent  through  the 
Capitol  showed  that  it  was  all  a  crawling  prosperity. 
And  so,  thank  God,  the  heel  of  our  manhood  is  near 
the  head  of  that  serpent  whose  trail  was  through 
church  and  'change  and  court  and  government. 

In  establishing  the  government,  our  fathers  compro- 
mised ;  to-day  we  reap  the  harvest  of  that  seed ;  and 
to-day  the  people  are  reading  the  law,  that  those  who 
begin  with  the  compromise  of  principle  have  given 
themselves  to  the  toils  of  a  glittering,  bright-eyed, 
golden-scaled  serpent,  which  must  inevitably  crush 


110  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

them   at  last.      See   before  you,  Americans,  the  con- 
sequences of  a  compromise  proposed  and  accepted ! 

Now  let  us  turn  into  the  past,  and  consider  an  in- 
stance of  another  kind ;  an  instance  of  a  compromise 
proposed  and  rejected,  and  the  consequences  of  the 
same.  Here  is  the  compromise  proposed :  — 

"  The  Devil  taketh  him  into  an  exceeding  high 
mountain,  and  showeth  him  all  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  and  the  glory  of  them ;  and  saith  unto  him, 
All  these  things  will  I  give  thee,  if  thou  wilt  fall 
down  and  worship  me." 

And  here  is  the  compromise  rejected:  — 
"Then  said  Jesus,  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan." 
And,  finally,  here  are  the  consequences :  — 
"  Then  the  Devil  leaveth   him,  and,  behold,  angels 
came  and  ministered  unto  him." 

May  we  not  even  call  this  the  Messiah  of  nations, 
as  it  stands  out  in  the  wilderness,  hungry  as  ever  for 
wealth  and  plenty,  but  obeying  the  spirit  which  leads 
it  to  the  trial  of  its  faith  in  justice  and  liberty  ? 

This  is  no  metaphor ;  it  is  a  momentous  reality. 
America  is  to-day  in  the  wilderness  of  temptation,  and 
beside  her  is  the  Tempter. 

Up  into  the  mountain  the  Tempter  leads,  —  the 
exceeding  high  mountain  of  our  national  greatness 
and  pride.  From  that  apex,  ready  to  crumble  under 
our  feet,  how  keenly  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  and 
their  glories  strike  the  senses !  On  one  side,  the  king- 
dom of  political  unity ;  on  another,  the  kingdom  of 


THE   DIAL   OF   GROWTHS.  Ill 

cotton ;  near  by,  the  realms  of  trade ;  and  there,  the 
kingdom  of  ecclesiastical  power.  The  Tempter  never 
slumbers  so  long  as  God  is  awake.  "  What  is  it,"  he 
whispers,  "  that  divides  your  nation  ?  what  is  it  that 
prevents  cotton  from  crystallizing  to  diamonds  for 
your  treasury?  what  is  it  that  hangs  the  auction-flag 
from  the  windows  of  trade?  what  is  it  that  sunders 
every  church?  It  is  your  hatred  of  African  Slavery. 
It  is  your  love  of  freedom.  Only  give  over  these, — 
only  consent  to  the  fetter  on  the  limbs  of  the  black 
man,  —  and  see,  all  these  kingdoms  are  yours,  with  all 
their  glories !  See,  the  nation  is  one  again ;  the  coffer 
is  full.  The  Church's  wounds  are  healed  so  soon  as 
Northern  and  Southern  Christians  consent  to  kneel 
around  a  common  altar,  there  to  eat  the  broken  body 
and  drink  the  shed  blood  of  the  African  race.  All 
these  shall  be  yours,  says  the  Tempter,  if  only  ye  will 
turn  from  the  shrine  of  Liberty,  and  worship  Slavery ; 
and  you  may  call  your  idol  patriotism,  union,  con- 
cession, compromise,  fraternal  feeling,  peace,  or  any 
other  fine  name  you  please." 

Never  before  was  the  Compromise-devil  foiled  in 
this  country.  Let  that  be  forever  named  "  an  exceed- 
ing high  mountain,"  where  the  people  confront  the 
Tempter  without  kneeling,  where  not  one  man  dear 
to  the  people  is  heard  saying,  This  be  thy  god,  0 
America ! 

But,  side  by  side,  there  are  yet  growing  two  blood- 


112  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

stained  growths,  with  petals  full  blown ;  they  are  Slav- 
ery and  War :  near  them  two  fair  white  buds,  whose 
names  are  Liberty  and  Peace.  Comrades,  faint  not, 
but  watch  and  labor  and  wait,  that  those  flame-leaved, 
sickening  blossoms  may  close,  as  they  must,  together ; 
and  in  that  moment  unfolding,  these  snowy,  healing 
ones  shall  record  that  it  is  Freedom's  noontide. 


XVIII. 

THE    GOLDEN   HOUR. 

THERE  is  an  Oriental  legend  which  relates  that  a 
poor  man  sat  a  thousand  years  before  the  gates  of  Par- 
adise ;  then,  in  his  weariness,  he  snatched  one  hour's 
sleep.  But  in  that  hour  the  gates  of  pearl  swung  open, 
and  the  poor  man  awoke  just  in  time  to  see  them  close. 

Long  has  this  country  been  sitting  in  dust  and  rags 
before  the  barred  gates  of  Liberation  from  the  curse 
which  is  upon  her.  In  our  midst  reigned  the  infernal 
institution  which  seemed  to  preserve  the  deadliest  blood- 
drops  of  all  the  tyrants  the  world  ever  saw.  It  crushed 
all  heart  and  hope  out  of  the  black  man  ;  it  laid  waste 
his  home,  and  made  the  earth  for  him  a  great  devil's 
masterpiece ;  but  it  could  not  so  wrong  him  as  it  has 
wronged  the  white  man.  From  the  white  man  it  took 


THE   GOLDEN  HOUR.  113 

the  very  marrow  of  honor.  It  has  made  it  a  life-long 
battle  to  be  a  gentleman  in  this  country,  Slavery  in- 
sisting that  one  shall  be  a  coward  and  a  Negro-hound. 
0  God  !  to  see  our  President's  own  State  wallowing 
in  the  very  sewers  of  Slavery  with  its  black  laws, 
until  one  longs  for  some  Toussaint  to  scourge  Illinois 
of  black  hearts,  and  fill  it  with  black  faces !  To  see 
Ohio,  ruled  by  the  vermin  who  tremble  to  take  a 
Confederate  officer's  slave  or  sword  in  her  own  cap- 
ital, stoning  any  man  of  common  sense  and  common 
honesty  who  would  have  her  go  a  step  beyond  pork 
and  whiskey  !  To  see  this  institution,  after  treading 
under  its  feet  the  millions  of  black  bodies  and  the 
souls  of  whites  in  the  South,  marching  on  through  the 
North,  its  brass  collar  on  the  necks  of  five  Represent- 
atives of  Massachusetts,  —  a  Republican  Cabinet  afraid 
to  look  it  in  the  eye  !  Alas !  it  is  not  four,  but  nearer 
twenty-four,  millions  of  slaves  we  have  in  America. 

But  now  has  the  Golden  Hour  come,  and  with  a 
song  from  every  angel,  a  shriek  from  every  demon, 
the  pearly  portals  of  Liberation  are  prized  open  by 
Slavery's  own  madness,  and  America  is  invited  to 
enter  the  blessed  land. 

Last  year  Republicans  had  to  be  technical  and  skilful 
in  proving  even  a  probability  that  at  the  bottom  of  the 
ballot-box  a  gateway  of  release  would  ever  be  found  ; 
to-day  it  requires  all  the  ingenuity  of  the  Cabinet  engi- 
neers not  to  free  us.  Their  great  problem  now  is,  how 
not  to  do  it. 


114  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

How  long  have  the  opponents  of  this  nation's  crime 
been  met  with  the  complaint  that  they  were  trying  to 
hurry  God?  "Cannot  you  let  Providence  do  its  own 
work  ? "  "  Providence  will  do  away  with  the  evil  in 
its  own  good  time." 

To  all  of  which,  not  without  a  suspicion  of  its  hypoc- 
risy, the  antislavery  man  could  only  reply,  with  Luther, 
"  God  is  a  good  worker,  but  loves  to  be  helped." 

But  now,  if  ever  "  providential  hour  "  and  "  God's 
own  good  time  "  meant  anything,  they  are  here.  The 
hour  has  arrived  when  Slavery  comes  outside  of  con- 
stitutional and  legal  intrenchments,  and  makes  its  death 
the  alternative  of  the  death  of  the  nation.  The  hour 
has  come  when  the  lives  of  our  best  and  bravest,  and 
the  bread  of  the  poor,  are  dependent  on  its  overthrow. 
The  hour  has  come  when  for  the  first  time  we  have  an 
army  gathered  sufficient  in  numbers  and  appointments 
to  secure  us  infallibly  against  those  fancied  dangers 
which  have  been  held  up  to  affright  the  timid,  as  fol- 
lowing in  the  train  of  emancipation. 

But  where  are  all  our  Providentialists  ?  Where  are 
those  who  bade  us  await  God's  own  good  time  ?  0  ye 
resigned  ones,  who  so  piously  suppressed  your  enthu- 
siasm for  freedom  lest  you  should  upset  God's  plans, 
do  not  all  speak  at  once ! 

How  does  God's  "  own  good  time "  passing  over 
our  heads  find  us?  Behold,  the  Bridegroom  cometh. 
At  the  altar  of  Justice,  Liberty  would  wed  America. 
Where  are  the  lamps,  filled,  trimmed,  and  ready  ? 


THE   GOLDEN  HOUR.  115 

Foolish  virgins,  whilst  ye  go  to  buy,  the  door  shall  be 
shut !  What  avails  all  our  toiling,  suffering,  pleading, 
—  what  avails  the  reddened  soil  of  Kansas,  what  the 
blood  of  the  martyrs,  —  if  now  the  golden  portal  of 
opportunity  to  which  these  have  brought  us  shall  be 
shut  in  our  faces  ? 

An  old  journal  had  this  singular  advertisement  in 
the  column  of  "  Losses  "  :  — 

"  LOST.  —  Yesterday,  somewhere  between  sunrise  and 
sunset,  a  Golden  Hour,  set  with  sixty  diamond  minutes" 

No  reward  was  offered,  doubtless  because  the  loser 
knew  that  the  priceless  jewel  was  gone  forever. 

Golden  is  every  hour ;  but  there  are  periods  when 
moments  are  hours,  and  hours  years,  and  years  ages. 
Who  can  appraise  the  hours  which  arrive,  one  by 
one,  Sibyl-like,  each  proffering  the  sacred  volumes  in 
which  the  victorious  destiny  of  a  Free  Republic  is 
written  ?  Who  can  hear  the  full  mournfulness  of 
the  word  "  Lost,"  but  they  who  know  that,  as  each 
hour  departs,  it  goes  to  burn  another  of  those  vol- 
umes ?  Meanwhile,  the  steadfast  oracle  proclaims 
that,  when  the  last  hour  which  gives  us  the  opportu- 
nity of  emancipation  passes,  the  doom  of  this  Union 
is  sealed. 

Not  one  hour  passes  over  this  nation,  but  in  it  — 
in  that  one  hour  —  the  nightmare  of  ages  might  be 
hurled  from  its  breast.  This  hour  a  decree  that 
henceforth  the  United  States  ignores  utterly  the  rela- 


116  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

tion  of  master  and  slave  paralyzes,  as  by  the  voice 
of  a  god,  every  arm  uplifted  against  the  country, 
and,  which  is  far  better,  saves  it  from  its  own  blind- 
ness here  on  the  precipice's  verge.  The  Sibyl,  Oppor- 
tunity, has  not  yet  left  the  slave  forever ;  his  eyes 
strain  toward  the  hope  which  has  not  yet  set ;  anon 
he  has  sent  up  his  signals  of  flame  to  see  if  the 
army  of  the  North  is  his  friend  or  enemy.  But  the 
slave  knows,  and  we  know,  that  his  status  in  this 
struggle  must  soon  be  settled ;  nay,  in  some  points 
it  is  already  settled,  and  he  stands  the  armed  foe 
of  the  United  States.  As  soon  as  it  is  determined 
that  this  is  not  his  Golden  Hour,  he  chooses  between 
two  foes ;  and  why  should  he  not  choose  the  side 
of  those  who  represent  the  evil  he  knows,  over  those 
representative  of  the  evils  he  knows  not  of?  Why 
should  he  fly  to  those  who  esteem  his  rights  beneath 
the  rights  of  traitors,  thieves,  and  assassins?  Why 
should  he  select  those  who  can  do  him  no  harm 
where  he  is,  in  preference  to  those  who  may  still 
hold  power  over  his  wife  and  child  and  parent  ? 

The  Golden  Hour  will  not  wait  on  us  to  the  meas- 
ure of  our  own  moral  cowardice.  "  We  should  not 
be  in  haste  to  determine  that  radical  measures  are 
necessary,"  says  the  President.  True,  but  we  should 
be  as  much  without  rest  as  without  haste,  for  no 
hour  will  bear  to  have  its  task  put  off  upon  another 
hour.  The  present  hour  offers  us  a  peaceful  victory 
through  emancipation.  The  next  may  offer  us  only 


THE   GOLDEN  HOUR.  117 

victory  by  that  means.  The  third  may  offer  us  a 
costly  victory,  provided  we  can  provide  arms  for  the 
slaves.  The  fourth  may  make  it  as  difficult  to  do 
this,  as  it  is  now  to  furnish  arms  to  the  loyal  men 
of  East  Tennessee.  The  fifth  may  sweep  away  our 
advantages  altogether,  and  our  Golden  Hour,  crossed 
by  a  scythe,  become  a  symbol  on  our  nation's  grave. 
Our  President  and  legislators  talk  of  this  advan- 
tage —  our  only  advantage,  mark  —  of  using  liberty 
to  save  the  country,  as  if  Time  was  in  their  pay. 
Time  is  in  the  pay  of  those  who  take  him  by  the 
forelock  :  he  is  all  bald  behind. 

When  the  commanding  general  at  Washington  an- 
nounced that  every  soldier  found  guilty  of  sleeping 
on  duty  should  be  shot,  some  of  us  were  alarmed 
by  an  apprehension  that  he  would  have  to  begin  at 
the  head  of  the  army,  and  shoot  all,  down  to  the 
drummer-boy.  So  far  as  the  country  knew,  the  whole 
army  of  the  Potomac  was  fast  asleep. 

There  is  in  history  no  other  instance  of  an  army 
within  sight  of  an  enemy  sleeping  away  seasons  so 
fair.  Why  was  that  strange  hesitancy  ?  "  The  army 
must  be  re-organized " :  we  waited  until  it  had 
passed  its  maximum  of  organization,  and  began  to 
decline.  "  The  rivers  are  too  highly  swollen  "  :  we 
stood  still  until  they  had  subsided.  "  The  roads  are 
utterly  impassable  for  artillery " :  we  waited  until 
they  were  dry.  "  When  the  leaves  fall "  :  the  last 


118  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

leaf  fell.  "  An  attack  from  the  enemy  is  momenta- 
rily expected  "  :  we  waited,  and  it  came  not.  "  Sec- 
retary Deepdiver  remarked  to-day,  in  conversation 
with  a  gentleman,  that  the  country  would  be  gratified 
by  stirring  news  in  ten  days  "  :  twenty  pass,  and  not 
a  stir. 

The  nation  arraigned  this  slumber  of  their  military 
energies,  and  has  awaited  the  plea  of  its  commanders. 
Thoughtless  nation,  your  commanders  had  a  very 
sufficient  plea.  They  slept  because  the  nation  slept. 
Their  eyes  were  heavy  because  atmospheric  conditions 
cannot  be  resisted.  A  certain  black  drug,  infused 
into  the  atmosphere  of  this  country,  has  made  open 
eyes  sectional,  and  Sleepy  Hollow  national ;  and,  as 
Rip  Van  Winkle  shouted  for  King  George  before  the 
astonished  subjects  of  the  United  States,  the  grad- 
uates of  a  certain  institution,  undoubtedly  built  on 
the  verge  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  have  not  yet  heard  that 
we  are  no  longer  colonies  of  the  South,  and  subjects 
of  Slavery. 

General  McClellan  occupied  his  position  at  the 
head  of  the  United  States  forces,  not  because  he  had 
lived  or  served  up  to  that  position,  —  for  several 
silly  proclamations  in  Western  Virginia,  the  Potomac 
blockade,  and  Ball's  Bluff  were  all  on  his  record, 
and  not  one  great  deed,  —  but  simply  because,  when 
his  superiors  snored,  he  was  not  so  disrespectful  as 
to  keep  awake.  He  is  not  a  large  man,  neither  is 
he  a  fool ;  and  he  could  peep  through  his  eyelids 


THE   GOLDEN   HOUR.  119 

enough  to  see  what  befell  such  wakeful  spirits  as 
Fremont  and  Lane.  General  McClellan  was  not  and 
is  not  a  traitor ;  but  in  this  war  every  pro-slavery 
heart  is,  whether  consciously  or  not,  a  partially  dis- 
loyal heart,  because  it  cannot  possibly  be  awake  to  the 
real  forces  in  this  conflict.  It  was  fixed  in  his  mind 
that  no  person  who  should  slay  many  Southerners 
could  fail  to  exasperate  the  South,  and  both  sections 
would  never  unite  sweetly  upon  any  such  man. 

It  would  have  been  impossible  for  McClellan  to  have 
remained  commander  during  that  long  inaction,  if  the 
people  had  not  been  in  a  rusty,  sleepy  transition  state  : 
when  they  first  sat  up  in  bed,  they  called  for  some  such 
man  as  Stanton  ;  for  the  President  is  the  faithful 
tongue  of  the  people's  wishes,  however  poorly  he  may 
supply  their  wants. 

Well,  in  a  military  sense  we  have  waked  up ;  but  in 
dealing  intelligently  and  directly  with  the  cause  and 
support  of  the  Rebellion  we  are  repeating  the  McClel- 
lan slumber  over  again.  In  this  higher  army  than 
the  military,  it  would  be  a  formidable  order  to  have 
all  the  sentinels  who  sleep  at  their  posts  shot. 

There  is  our  honored  President,  for  example,  none 
can  doubt  that  he  is  wide  awake  before  the  portal  of 
Military  Opportunity ;  but  before  the  open  door  by 
which  our  nation  may  pass  onward  to  liberation  from 
all  that  makes  war  possible,  he  gives  scarcely  a  sign. 
It  is  evident  that  the  worthy  President  would  like  to 
have  God  on  his  side  :  he  must  have  Kentucky. 


120  THE    GOLDEN  -HOriJ. 

In  all  this  the  nation  hears  only  the  echo  of  its  own 
loud  snore.  What  are  leaders  to  do  when,  at  a  time 
when  the  very  existence  of  the  nation  is  threatened, 
they  hear  sensible  men  asking  old  cant  questions  about 
the  Negroes,  and  what  to  do  with  them  ? 

Is  the  Negro  descended  from  the  same  original  pair 
with  the  Caucasian  ?  —  For  what  is  the  use  of  our 
nation's  being  saved,  if  it  is  not  ethnologically  saved  ? 

Will  not  the  Negro  steal  our  silver  spoons  ?  How 
dreary  were  a  spoonless  nationality  !  (A  happy 
thought  !  We  can  employ  Floyd  or  some  other 
Caucasian  as  a  missionary  to  inculcate  honesty  to 
Negroes.) 

What  is  meant  in  the  Scriptures  by  "  Cursed  be 
Canaan  "  ?  For,  of  course,  national  existence  is  noth- 
ing if  not  exegetical  ? 

Again,  what  is  the  origin  of  evil  ?  For  is  not  death 
better  than  unteleological  life  ? 

That,  we  should  be  spending  three  millions  a  day, 
and  our  men  perishing  by  thousands,  whilst  we  discuss 
the  destiny  and  capacity  of  the  negro,  reminds  one  of 
the  position  taken  by  Anacharsis  Clootz  in  the  French 
Assembly,  "  that  the  democratic  principle  was  of  such 
importance,  that  it  would  be  cheaply  purchased  by  the 
total  destruction  of  the  human  race  from  the  face  of  the 
planet "  ! 

What  shall  be  done  with  the  Negro,  forsooth !  Can 
we  do  any  worse  with  him  than  we  have  done,  and  are 
doing  ?  Can  he  be  any  heavier  burden  to  us  than  now, 


THE   GOLDEN  HOUB.  121 

when  he  is  the  fulcrum  on  which  turns  every  lever  set 
to  overthrow  our  liberties  and  lives  ?  May  we  not 
respectfully  submit  that  it  is  about  as  much  as  we  can 
attend  to,  to  take  care  of  Society  in  1862,  without 
adjusting  the  social  relations  and  conditions  of  1962  ? 
May  it  not  be  surmised  that  the  future  will  have  brains 
to  attend  to  its  own  affairs  ?  May  we  not  suggest,  also, 
that,  having  once  decided  what  we  would  "  do  with  the 
Negro,"  Almighty  God  does  n't  seem  to  have  been  over 
pleased  at  our  disposal  of  him  in  that  instance,  and 
seems  very  likely  to  have  a  share  in  any  future  disposal 
of  him  ? 

Accuse  not  thy  generals,  0  American  nation  !  Thou 
art  the  drugged  sleeper.  Before  thee  with  thy  heavy- 
eyed  millions,  Liberty,  in  sight  of  the  swords  and  staves 
of  avowed  foes  and  seeming  friends,  which  threaten  its 
life,  stands  appealing,  "  Couldst  thou  not  watch  with 
me  one  hour  ?  "  It  may  be  that  Liberty  shall  have  to 
say  presently  to  the  slumbering  sentinels,  "  Sleep  on 
now :  my  hour  is  come  "  ;  —  and  must  needs  pass  to 
its  resurrection  through  the  dark  portal  of  her  chosen 
nation's  grave. 


122  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

XIX. 

THE    NEGRO. 

MONTESQUIEU  said  that  it  would  not  do  to  suppose 
that  Negroes  were  men,  lest  it  should  turn  out  that 
whites  were  not. 

The  sarcasm  falls  almost  exclusively  upon  this  coun- 
try, where  alone  the  indecent  nonsense  concerning  the 
nature  of  the  Negro  survives.  In  1781,  in  the  case 
of  the  ship  Zong,  whose  master  had  thrown  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-two  slaves  alive  into  the  sea  to  cheat 
the  underwriters,  the  first  jury  gave  a  verdict  in  favor 
of  the  master  and  owners :  they  had  a  right  to  do 
•\vhat  they  had  done.  Lord  Mansfield  is  reported  to 
have  said  on  the  bench :  "  The  matter  left  to  the  jury 
is,  Was  it  from  necessity  ?  For  they  had  no  doubt  — 
though  it  shocks  one  very  much  —  that  the  case  of 
slaves  was  the  same  as  if  horses  had  been  thrown 
overboard."  Such  was  the  Negro  in  the  eye  of  the 
law  when  Sharpe  and  Clarkson  began  their  efforts. 
The  latter  of  these,  early  in  his  career,  made  a  col- 
lection of  African  productions  and  manufactures,  as 
indications  of  what  the  Negro,  despite  all  disparage- 
ments, had  attained.  They  were  considered  remark- 
able by  some  of  the  best  judges  in  England.  Mr. 
Pitt  was  especially  interested  in  them.  "  On  sight  of 
these,"  says  Clarkson,  "  many  sublime  thoughts  seemed 


THE  NEGRO.  123 

to  rush  at  once  into  his  mind,  some  of  which  he  ex- 
pressed." From  this  time  the  project,  which  was 
always  dear  to  him,  of  the  civilization  of  Africa  arose 
in  his  mind.  A  half-century  of  healthy  development 
brought  England  to  its  senses  as  regards  the  Negro. 

Since  then  the  Negro  has  lived  to  prove  that  those 
who  are  counting  upon  perpetual  degradation  and 
final  extermination  as  his  destiny  are  running  against 
the  grain  of  things.  He  has  shown  a  vitality  equal 
to  that  of  the  white  race,  where  both  are  out  of  their 
native  climates  ;  and  where  the  white  man  has  been 
vindicating  his  claim  to  superiority  only  by  enslaving 
him,  —  empowered  to  do  so  by  having  armed  nations 
behind  him,  —  the  Negro  has  shown  himself  easily 
superior  to  his  master.  This  he  has  always  proved  as 
soon  as  the  outside  pressure  of  law  and  force  was  re- 
moved, and  a  fair  trial  of  strength  between  him  and 
his  master  permitted.  He  has  become  the  dominant 
race  in  the  West  Indies  ;  he  has  superseded  the  white 
man  in  Haiti  altogether  ;  and  the  unanimous  verdict 
of  our  soldiers  now  in  the  South  is,  that  the  Negro  is 
the  superior  race  in  that  section  of  America.  Of  the 
eight  millions  of  whites  in  the  Slave  States,  six  are 
"  poor  white  trash,"  and  no  one  who  has  seen  them 
can  compare  them  to  the  black  laborers  there.  And 
when  it  comes  to  upper  classes,  it  is  not  easy  to 
decide  that  Jeff  Davis's  coachman  is  better  fitted  to 
be  the  slave  than  the  master  of  Jeff,  or  that  Robert 
Small  is  not  equal  to  Pickens,  Floyd,  or  any  of  their 
set. 


124  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

At  Monticello  the  exquisite  mosaic  floor,  made  by 
one  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  slaves,  is  yet  in  good  preserva- 
tion. The  old  friend  of  that  statesman  who  showed 
it  to  me  said :  "  Mr.  Jefferson  always  took  pleasure  in 
showing  his  visitors  this  exquisite  piece  of  workman- 
ship. It  was  made  by  one  of  his  slaves,  born  on 
his  estate,  who  never  had  any  instruction  as  a  me- 
chanic. Mr.  Jefferson  always  believed  that  the  Negro 
race  had  a  destiny." 

There  is  the  important  fact ;  there  lies  the  Encela- 
dus  under  this  volcano,  —  THE  NEGRO  HAS  AN  IMPOR- 
TANT DESTINY  TO  FULFIL  IN  HUMAN  SOCIETY.  Our  laws 

and  plans  have  been  arranged  with  reference  to  an- 
other theory:  we  had  assumed  his  moral  and  political 
non-existence,  and  in  so  doing  we  have  gone,  day  by 
day,  more  and  more  against  the  eternal  fact.  And 
unless  we  speedily  have  that  lie  which  this  nation  has 
actively  credited  purged  out  of  it,  it  will  drag  us  into 
the  abyss  prepared  for  lies  from  before  the  foundation 
of  the  world.  Elwood  Fisher  has  prepared  for  this 
nation  an  epitaph  which  runs :  "  Here  lies  a  people 
who  lost  their  own  liberty  in  trying  to  give  freedom 
to  the  Negro."  The  hope  is  too  high  for  us  to  in- 
dulge, that  this  nation  can  thus  become  the  dying 
Saviour  among  the  nations !  If  the  nation  should 
perish,  history  would  engrave  on  its  tomb,  "  Here  lies 
a  people  who  lost  their  own  liberty  in  trying  to  pur- 
sue through  a  Red  Sea  those  for  whose  liberty  God 
had  parted  the  waves." 


THE   NEGRO.  125 

The  worst  symptom  in  the  case  of  America  is  the 
prejudice  against  the  Negro,  —  a  disease  which  always 
has  called  for  fearful  cauterization.  What  is  in  re- 
fined society  unmitigated  vulgarity,  is  in  this  country 
considered  elegance.  A  few  years  ago,  President  Rob- 
erts of  Liberia  was  returning  from  America  through 
England.  The  captain  of  the  steamship  would  not 
allow  this  cultivated  and  distinguished  gentleman  to 
sit  at  table  with  the  white  passengers ;  and  persisted 
in  his  refusal,  even  after  a  majority  of  the  whites  had 
requested  otherwise.  A  day  after  their  arrival  in 
England,  Mr.  Roberts,  having  some  business  with  the 
captain,  repaired  to  the  steamship,  and  found  him  in 
the  presence  of  many  of  the  passengers  who  had  wit- 
nessed his  treatment  on  board.  On  being  addressed, 
the  captain  said  to  President  Roberts,  "  Come  down  this 
evening  at  8  o'clock,  and  I  will  attend  to  you."  "  At 
that  hour,"  replied  Roberts,  "  I  am  engaged  to  dine 
with  the  Queen  of  England."  The  confused  captain 
named  another  hour,  amidst  the  explosive  laughter  of 
the  company.  This  Negro,  so  offensive  to  the  steam- 
boat aristocracy  of  America,  is  received  as  diplomatic 
minister  in  every  other  government  of  Christendom, 
and  at  Rome  the  African  bishop  stands  beside  the 
whitest  who  in  America  may  be  helping  to  enslave 
his  race.  Is  there  wonder  that  in  many  parts  of  Eu- 
rope "American"  should  be  synonymous  with  "vul- 
gar"? 

It  has  been  whispered  that  Haiti  will  appoint  a  white 


126  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

man  to  act  for  that  country  at  Washington.  I  cannot 
believe  that  the  President  of  Haiti  could  so  far  degrade 
his  country  before  the  world  as  to  make  such  an  ap- 
pointment ;  but  if  there  are  any  such  influences  at 
work,  it  behooves  every  friend  of  freedom  to  protest 
loudly  and  strongly  against  it.  If  Haiti  cannot  be  rep- 
resented here  by  her  blackest  Negro,  let  her  be  unrep- 
resented ;  this  nation  already  perceives  that  we  need 
her  more  than  she  needs  us.  But  more  than  all  the 
fruits,  spices,  and  wealth  she  can  bring  us,  we  need 
her  black  minister  in  Washington.  We  need  him  there 
as  the  touchstone  of  our  civilization  ;  we  need  him  as 
the  magic  mantle  to  reveal  every  sham  and  every  im- 
purity in  the  Republican  Court. 

"  I  esteem,"  says  Emerson,  "  the  occasion  of  this 
jubilee  (West  Indian  Emancipation)  to  be  the  proud 
discovery  that  the  black  race  can  contend  with  the 
white ;  that,  in  the  great  anthem  which  we  call  History, 
a  piece  of  many  parts  and  vast  compass,  after  playing 
a  long  time  a  very  low  and  subdued  accompaniment, 
they  perceive  the  time  arrived  when  they  can  strike 
in  with  effect,  and  take  a  master's  part  in  the  music. 
The  civility  of  the  world  has  reached  that  pitch,  that 
their  more  moral  genius  is  becoming  indispensable, 
and  the  quality  of  this  race  is  to  be  honored  for 
itself.  For  this  they  have  been  preserved  in  sandy 
deserts,  in  rice  swamps,  in  kitchens  and  shoe-shops,  so 
long;  now  let  them  emerge,  clothed  and  in  their  own 
form." 


THE  NEGRO.  127 

No  danger  from  the  Southern  Confederacy  threatens 
us  so  much  as  this  cry  of  our  rulers  for  the  coloniza- 
tion of  freed  Negroes.  A  million  square  miles  of  un- 
tilled  lands  to  which  their  sinews  are  by  the  laws  of 
Nature  consecrated,  are  clamoring  for  them,  and  yet 
madmen  in  power  are  talking  of  exiling  them  !  Haiti, 
Liberia,  and  now  the  Danish  government,  are  all  in- 
triguing to  get  these  laborers  from  us ;  and  nothing 
but  the  resolution  of  the  Negroes,  that  they  will  not 
go  unless  forced,  saves  us  from  this  fearful  loss. 
America  will  one  day  kneel,  and  thank  that  people 
that  they  held  out  against  the  stupidity  and  ignorance 
of  the  colonizationists,  whose  projects  would  blight  one 
half  of  our  territory.  If,  by  any  unfortunate  means, 
America  shall  be  robbed  of  this  race,  posterity  will 
know  the  President  under  whom  the  exodus  occurs 
only  by  the  name  of  FOOL. 

"What  are  we  to  do  with  the  Negro  ?  Is  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  brain  on  this  hemisphere  softening  ?  If  so, 
some  day  in  the  midst  of  wasted  fields  and  desolate 
lands,  we  may  be  burdened  with  the  question,  What 
can  we  do  without  him  ? 

No  !  this  race  is  to  remain  with  us  ;  it  has  brought 
from  the  remote  past  and  fervid  East  a  sacred  stream 
of  vitality,  by  it  alone  now  represented  upon  earth, 
which  it  is  appointed  to  mingle  with  the  current  of 
humanity,  and  without  which  man  in  the  New  World 
could  never  fill  out  the  outlines  sketched  for  him  by 
the  Supreme  Artist. 


128  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

XX. 

TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

HONORED  SIR  :  —  Passing  homeward  one  night,  about 
three  years  ago,  I  encountered  a  large  crowd,  who  were 
listening  to  some  speaker.  A  crowd  in  the  market 
space  of  our  Queen  City  was  nothing  unusual,  and  I 
was  thinking  only  how  to  open  my  way  through  it,  when, 
in  clear,  earnest  tones,  these  words  fell  upon  my  ear : 
"  I  am  satisfied  that  the  only  just  and  effectual  method 
of  dealing  with  Slavery  is  that  which  shall  always  recog- 
nize and  deal  with  it  AS  WRONG." 

In  a  moment  I  turned,  and  remained  for  over  an 
hour  to  hear  a  powerful  statement  of  which  that  sen- 
tence was  the  key-note.  The  next  time  I  saw  that 
speaker  it  was  as  he  passed  along  the  same  street,  amid 
the  ovations  of  the  people  who  had  helped  to  elect 
him  as  a  President  who  should  deal  with  Slavery  as 
a  great  wrong,  —  how  great  they  did  not  then  know, 
or  much  more  than  surmise. 

Since  that  day,  Sir,  in  which  the  sight  of  a  duly- 
elected  honest,  antislavery  President  filled  our  eyes 
with  happy  tears,  this  country  has  seen  nothing  which 
does  not  indicate  that  you  mean  to  deal  with  the 
accursed  thing  as  wrong. 

Though  your  administration  had  been  proved  to 
have  exhausted  itself  in  having  called  out  seventy-five 


TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.   129 

thousand  men  to  defend  the  integrity  of  this  nation, 
the  people  could  never  have  forgotten  that,  in  doing 
so,  you  did  a  greater  deed  than  Cortez,  burning  the 
ships  of  ignoble  compromise  behind  us. 

But,  Sir,  your  administration  did  not  exhaust  itself 
in  that:  the  laurels  shall  never  fade  which  twine 
about  the  brow  of  the  President  under  whose  admin- 
istration Slavery  was  abolished  in  the  District,  and 
Haiti  recognized,  and  Emancipation  first  proposed  from 
the  "White  House. 

But  all  these  things  will  not  save  this  Republic 
from  dissolution.  No  one  who  has  ever  looked  of 
late  into  your  eye,  as  I  have,  can  fail  to  see  that 
every  fibre  of  heart  and  brain  in  you  has  become 
identified  with  the  rescue  of  this  Union  from  the 
perils  which  threaten  it,  and  that  there  is  no  per- 
sonal sacrifice  which  you  could  not  make  for  that 
end.  Nor  can  any  observing  person  fail  to  see  that 
the  tendency  of  your  mind  and  action  is  steadily 
toward  Emancipation  ;  whilst  many,  who  know  that  in 
such  an  emergency  as  this  a  day  is  often  a  century, 
feel  keenly  that,  not  for  the  slave's  sake,  but  for  our 
own,  we  need  sharp,  bold,  decisive,  in  a  word,  heroic 
action. 

The  naturalist  Thoreau  used  to  amuse  us  much 
by  thrusting  his  hand  into  the  Concord  River,  and 
drawing  out  at  will  a  fine  fish,  which  would  lie  qui- 
etly in  his  hand :  when  we  thrust  in  ours,  the  fish 
would  scamper  out  of  reach.  It  seemed  like  a  mir- 

6*  I 


130  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

acle,  until  he  explained  to  us  that  his  power  to  take 
up  the  fish  depended  upon  his  knowledge  of  the  color 
and  location  of  the  fish's  eggs.  The  fish  will  protect 
its  spawn  ;  and  when  Thoreau  placed  his  hand  un- 
derneath that,  the  fish,  in  order  to  protect  it,  would 
swim  immediately  over  it,  and  the  fingers  had  only 
to  close  for  it  to  be  caught. 

Slavery  is  the  spawn  out  of  which  the  armed  forces 
of  treason  and  rebellion  in  the  South  have  been 
hatched ;  and  by  an  inviolable  instinct  they  will  rush, 
at  any  cost,  to  protect  Slavery.  You  have  only,  Sir, 
to  take  Slavery  in  your  grasp,  then  close  your  fingers 
around  the  rebellion. 

This  I  have  tried  to  prove ;  also,  that  the  only  way 
of  grasping  the  rebellion-spawn  is  to  declare  that  this 
nation  no  longer  recognizes  the  institution  of  Slavery 
as  in  existence.  This  we  humbly  implore  you  to  do, 
by  the  martial  power  which  Slavery  has  compelled 
you  to  use  in  place  of  the  normal  powers  of  the  Con- 
stitution. For,  Sir,  from  the  day  in  which  Slavery 
became  to  this  government  an  outlaw,  Liberty  be- 
came, like  ancient  Thebes,  hundred-gated. 

It  is  a  high  circumstance,  Sir,  whether  its  full 
bearing  was  seen  by  our  fathers  or  not,  that  the  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  our  army  and  navy  is  at  the  same 
time  the  chief  guardian  of  our  national  honor  and 
political  liberties ;  and  whilst  a  mere  military  general 
may  have  no  higher  draft  to  make  upon  martial 
] tower  than  that  which  will  enable  him  to  make  this 


TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.    131 

or  that  expedition  successful,  we  have  a  right  to  claim 
that  our  President  shall  raise  a  higher  -standard  of 
Necessity,  —  one  including  not  only  the  preservation 
of  our  national  existence,  but  of  that  security  with- 
out military  despotism,  that  honor  without  stain,  which 
alone  can  make  existence  worthy  of  preservation. 

The  air  is  full  of  noisy  objections  against  the  re- 
quest of  your  petitioners  for  an  edict  of  emancipation. 
Some  of  these  remind  me  of  the  Sheik's  objection  to 
lending  his  rope.  When  Abul  Alladin  asked  of  him 
the  loan  of  a  rope,  the  Sheik  said,  "  I  need  it  to  tie 
up  a  measure  of  sand."  "  Need  a  rope  to  tie  up 
sand  !  "  exclaimed  Abul  in  astonishment.  "  0  neigh- 
bor," replied  the  Sheik,  "any  reason  will  do  when 
one  does  not  wish  to  lend  a  thing."  There  is  no  use 
in  dealing  with  objections  which  arise  from  the  desire 
and  determination  to  retain  Slavery  in  this  country, 
at  any  time ;  certainly  none  in  addressing  one  who 
has  declared  his  determination  to  recognize  and  deal 
with  it  only  as  wrong. 

The  people  have  witnessed  with  indignation  how 
those  who  lately  denounced  you  as  a  sectional  candi- 
date, because  they  saw  that,  if  you  reached  the  White 
House,  you  would  be  the  President,  and  not  Slavery, 
are  now  at  Washington,  standing  in  the  shoes  yet 
warm  from  the  feet  of  traitors,  and,  in  the  interest 
of  Slavery,  throwing  it  perpetually  in  your  face  that 
you  entered  the  arena  upon  the  platform  of  non-inter- 
fereiice  with  Slavery  in  the  States.  You,  Sir,  cannot 


132 

be  deceived  by  such  twaddle ;  and  if  you  fear  that  any 
honest  people  are,  I  pray  you  to  dismiss  the  misgiv- 
ing. They  know,  Sir,  that  interference  with  Slavery 
in  the  States  was  not  in  your  Chicago  Platform ;  they 
know  also  that  the  loss  of  twenty  thousand  men  pur- 
suant to  your  proclamation  was  not  in  your  Chicago 
Platform.  The  remedy  must  change  with  the  disease : 
the  physician  may  give  an  appropriate  medicine  for 
measles ;  but  if  the  measles  should  presently  change 
to  small-pox,  what  should  we  say  of  a  physician  who 
should  attempt  to  vindicate  his  consistency  by  giving 
the  same  medicine  after  the  disease  had  changed  ? 
The  Chicago  Platform  prescribed  for  measles ;  but  you 
have  to  treat  a  virulent  case  of  small-pox,  and  the 
•  patient  will  not  last  until  you  can  get  party-men  to 
make  a  new  platform. 

It  is  demonstrable,  Sir,  that  in  every  point  of  view 
—  constitutional,  ethical,  or  personal  —  you  have  more 
right  to  kill  an  institution  that  injures  man,  than  you 
have  to  kill  a  man.  Institutions  at  the  best  are  the 
mere  scaffoldings  about  man. 

But  you  are  assured  that  this  measure  would  divide 
the  North.  In  contradiction  of  this,  we  have  the  lesson 
of  a  recent  experience.  One  of  our  generals  did,  in 
the  face  of  the  world,  take  the  God  of  Justice  on  his 
side  ;  he  who  had  planted  our  banner  on  the  highest 
point  of  land  in  America  found  a  higher  height,  and 
planted  it  there,  when  he  declared  every  slave  free 
whom  he  could  declare  free.  What  was  the  result,  ? 


TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.    133 

Like  a  crystal  stream  from  everlasting  hills  upon  a 
parched  and  thirsty  land  came  his  proclamation  ;  the 
nation  was  filled  with  joy  and  power  ;  the  young  men 
sprang  to  their  feet  as  they  read  it,  and  their  hearts 
throbbed  with  a  divine  enthusiasm  ;  rank  after  rank 
poured  westward,  and  Europe  for  the  first  and  only 
time  glowed  with  sympathy  and  admiration.  Even  the 
vilest  presses  which  had  been  dragged  along  after  our 
banner  —  the  New  York  Herald,  the  Boston  Courier 
and  Post,  and  Cincinnati  Enquirer  —  seemed  to  feel  a 
touch  of  nobleness,  and  cried  Bravo !  to  the  Pathfinder 
as  he  scaled  this  loftier  height  than  any  sierra.  All 
felt  that  it  was  our  only  great  victory,  our  compensa- 
tion for  every  defeat.  For  one  noble  week  we  were  a 
united,  electrified,  invincible  nation.  Alas  !  since  that 
week  a  humiliated,  discontented,  divided,  muttering  na- 
tion, we  have  been  but  a  monument  of  the  tremendous 
power  of  that  invisible  thing  called  Justice,  to  uplift 
those  who  ally  themselves  therewith,  and  to  divide 
and  weaken  those  who  "  modify  "  her  plain  mandates. 
From  that  week  we  have  been  divided,  and  the  only 
token  of  a  return  to  the  same  unity  appeared  when  our 
President  took  lately  a  step  toward  that  standard  of  lib- 
erty which  he  had  furled  for  reasons  which  seemed  to 
him  patriotic  and  necessary.  And  as  he  shall  take  step 
after  step  upward  and  onward,  more  and  more  will  he 
find  the  North  gather  into  a  solid  phalanx  around  him. 
"  But  our  officers  and  soldiers  would  lay  down  their 
arms."  As  far  as  our  soldiers  are  concerned,  this  is 


134  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

but  a  base  and  silly  libel.  The  records  show  that 
enlistments  tripled  in  number  after  Fremont's  procla- 
mation, all  the  soldiers  wishing  to  go  into  his  depart- 
ment ;  and  that  they  were  seriously  checked  when 
that  edict  of  freedom  was  modified.  As  for  our  gen- 
erals, it  would  be  one  of  the  best  things  about  such 
an  edict  that  it  might  cause  some  of  them  to  resign  ;  — 
I  hope  the  majority  would  go  home,  with  their  friends 
Patterson  and  Stone,  who  have  gone  before.  Who 
would  not  be  glad  to  hear  that  every  half-hearted 
leader  had  been  cowed  back  by  the  determined  front 
of  Liberty,  which  he  had  pretended  to  serve  whilst 
really  serving  Slavery  ?  Once,  says  an  old  fable,  the 
cat,  hearing  that  the  hen  was  sick,  went  to  pay  her  a 
visit.  After  condoling  with  the  invalid,  the  cat  said, 
"  Really,  I  should  like  to  serve  you  in  any  way  in  my 
power.  What  can  I  do  for  you  ? "  The  invalid  hen 
cast  an  uneasy  glance  at  the  yellow  eyes  and  hungry 
chops  of  the  cat,  and  replied,  "  You  can  do  me  a  signal 
service  by  leaving  me.  I  think  if  you  will  leave  me,  I 
shall  be  much  better."  Some  people's  room  is  better 
than  their  company ;  and  amongst  these  may  be  reck- 
oned those  who,  in  a  war  for  Liberty,  esteem  it  their 
duty  to  hunt  down,  to  crush  with  an  iron  hand,  to 
refuse  entrance  within  their  lines  to  the  innocent  and 
wronged  who  seek  their  liberty  also  ;  or  who  know  so 
little  of  the  old  Orphic  strain  to  which  the  walls  of 
the  universe  arose,  as  to  drive  from  their  camp  the 
minstrels  who  sing  of  LIBERTY. 


TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.    135 

With  reference,  however,  to  this  fear  of  dividing  the 
North  or  their  army,  we  may  admit  that  the  kindling 
and  spreading  of  such  a  fire  would  rouse  up  some 
nests  of  serpents  in  both.  But  those  who  have  studied 
most  deeply  epochs  related  to  that  through  which  we 
are  now  passing,  know  how  fatal  has  been  any  wait- 
ing for  complete  unity. 

No  cause  has  ever  kindled  the  enthusiasm  which 
could  sustain  it  to  the  end,  until  it  was  elevated 
enough  to  slough  off  its  baser  adherents. 

No  cause  ever  produced  the  heroes  necessary  to  its  real 
and  final  victory,  until  it  was  pure  enough  to  separate, 
as  on  God's  threshing-floor,  the  chaff  from  the  wheat. 

Our  fathers  of  the  Revolution  never  gained  any 
great  victories  until  the  war  about  taxes  became  a 
war  for  complete  independence  ;  but  when  that  period 
came,  they  had  to  fight  the  Tories  with  one  hand  and 
the  British  with  the  other.  For  a  long  time  it  was 
difficult  to  say  whether  Tories  or  Independents  were  in 
the  majority ;  but  the  world  was  given  again  to  see 
that  strength  does  not  lie  in  majorities,  but  rather  in 
causes  so  glorious  that  every  man  standing  for  them 
is  a  hundred-fold  the  man  he  would  be  fighting  on  the 
lowest  plane. 

As  for  more  division  coming  of  the  elevation  of  our 
cause  than  is  implied  in  this  weeding  and  winnowing 
of  our  ranks,  a  higher  force  enters  in  all  such  cases  to 
prevent  it.  That  higher  force  is  HEROISM.  That  elec- 
tric battery  has  a  line  to  every  human  heart. 


136  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

The  demagogues  do  not  estimate  this  in  making  their 
calculations.  We  had  a  little  over  a  year  ago  Govern- 
ors of  Free  States  declaring  that  any  troops  marching 
southward  must  fight  their  militia  first.  We  had  a 
Senator  declaring  that  disunion  would  run  a  plough- 
share along  the  great  National  Road.  Mr.  Lincoln 
resolved  that  he  would  stand  or  fall  by  the  Republic, 
and  answered  all  these  prophecies  with  the  call  for  an 
army,  and  lo  !  instead  of  a  ploughshare  dividing  the 
Northwest,  instead  of  a  fire  in  the  rear,  the  North, 
which  Daniel  Webster  said  had  no  existence,  rises  as 
one  man  at  his  heroic  call.  The  first  touch  of  heroism 
in  the  government  created  anew  this  nation. 

Then  the  demagogues  said,  "  But  just  touch  a  slave, 
and  these  men  will  lay  down  their  arms."  Fremont, 
as  we  have  seen,  responds  with  a  declaration  that  the 
slaves  of  rebels  are  freemen,  and  the  country  gathers 
about  him  with  a  tenacity  which  jealous  officials  and 
investigating  committees  strive  vainly  to  weaken. 

If  there  is  anything  proved  by  our  experience  in 
this  war,  it  is  that  one  true  man  may  chase  ten  thou- 
sand old-line  Democrats.  Try  it,  Mr.  President;  re- 
member that  your  boldest  word  has  had  the  noblest 
echo  from  the  people,  and  try  a  braver  one  yet !  Utter, 
loud  enough  for  the  nation,  the  slave,  the  world  to 
hear,  the  watchword,  LIBERTY  TO  ALL,  and  though  trai- 
tors in  the  North  may  writhe,  they  shall  be  as  fangless 
as  the  Rebellion  shall  thenceforth  be  ;  for  every  true 
heart  upon  this  earth  is  at  your  side  from  that  instant, 
to  live  and  to  die. 


TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.    137 

You  will  hear  the  cry  "Abolitionist!"  no  doubt: 
I  will  not  believe  that  it  can  terrify  you.  What  is  an 
Abolitionist?  He  is  simply  a  man  who  desires  liberty 
for  the  entire  family  of  man :  —  this  is  a  wretch  das- 
tardly enough  to  oppose  having  that  done  to  another 
man,  his  wife  and  child,  which  he  would  not  like  to 
have  done  to  himself,  his  wife  and  child !  George 
Washington,  when  he  declared  that  the  first  wish  of 
his  heart  was  to  have  Slavery  abolished,  —  George 
Washington,  when  he  called  to  be  Chief  Justice  of 
the  United  States  the  founder  and  President  of  the 
New  York  Abolition  Society,  John  Jay,  —  was  this 
monster,  an  Abolitionist !  His  real  farewell  address, 
the  will  made  on  his  death-bed,  freeing  his  slaves, 
was  an  appeal  for  abolition. 

I  believe  there  are  few  who  doubt  that  it  is  your 
jealous  care  for  the  interests  of  the  Border  States, 
and  a  (supposed)  large  number  of  Unionists  in  the  far 
South,  that  constitutes  the  chief  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  this  radical  cure.  Even  so  far  as  their  own  testi- 
mony on  this  subject  is  concerned,  we  have  no  reason 
to  believe  that  the  real  Southern  Unionists  are  repre- 
sented in  this  emergency  by  the  men  who  have  been 
sent  to  Washington  merely  by  habit  in  comparatively 
unimportant  times.  What  reason  have  we  to  believe 
that  Southern  Unionists  are  represented  by  Andy  John- 
son or  Mr.  Crittenden,  more  than  Ohioans  by  Vallan- 
dingham?  The  people  do  not  reach  you  so  skilfully 
or  readily  as  these  politicians.  I  remember,  Sir,  to 


138  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

have  heard  you  expressing  a  doubt  as  to  the  readi- 
ness of  these  people  for  any  dealing  with  Slavery, 
when  a  moment  before  I  had  been  conversing  with 
a  very  intelligent  Unionist  from  Florida,  a  large  pro- 
prietor and  slaveholder  in  that  State,  who  informed 
me  that  he  had  been  in  the  anteroom  of  the  White 
House  for  several  hours  a  day  for  nearly  three  weeks, 
without  being  received  or  heard.  He  came  to  give  it 
as  his  opinion,  and  that  of  the  half-dozen  Union  men 
whom  he  knew  in  his  State,  that  to  abolish  Slavery 
was  the  one  way  of  putting  down  the  Rebellion.  I 
fear  that  many  of  those  hours  were  occupied  by  men 
from  the  Border  States  who  would  not  have  represented 
the  real  loyalists  of  the  South  half  so  well.  An  ac- 
quaintance of  some  years  with  the  people  of  the  moun- 
tain ranges  extending  through  Maryland  down  to  Ala- 
bama leads  me  to  affirm  that  two  thirds  of  them  would 
welcome  a  decree  of  emancipation  by  the  government ; 
whilst  a  generous  response  would  not  fail  from,  the 
eighteen  thousand  Germans  of  New  Orleans,  and  the 
five  thousand  apiece  of  Richmond  and  Louisville.  Of 
Missouri  I  need  not  speak :  nothing  but  a  disability 
in  the  Constitution  of  that  State  prevents  an  almost 
immediate  response  to  your  offer  of  "  co-operation." 
That  State  had,  before  the  Rebellion  broke  out,  150,000 
blaves ;  it  now  has  less  than  50,000.  A  decree  of 
emancipation,  paying  loyal  masters  of  course,  would 
be  a  great  relief  to  that  State  from  its  complications. 
There  is  but  a  very  small  number  of  loyal  slave- 


TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.    139 

holders  in  the  Border  States ;  and  surely  they  could 
not  show  their  loyalty  more  than  by  refusing  to  allow 
this  slight  interest  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the  national 
safety.  What  would  the  country  say,  if,  when  you 
asked  men  owning  land  around  Washington  or  St.  Louis 
to  yield  their  land  and  houses,  that  national  defences 
might  be  made  perfect,  they  had  refused  ?  They 
would  be  esteemed  disloyal,  and  their  lands  taken. 
You,  sir,  have  given  the  handful  of  slaveholders  in  the 
Border  States  a  good  military  reason  why  they  should 
emancipate,  in  your  special  message  ;  to  the  country 
it  seems  a  sufficient  touchstone  of  their  loyalty  or 
disloyalty. 

Suppose  they  should  not  receive  the  full  market 
value  for  their  slaves,  —  though  we  could  pay  that  at 
far  less  cost  than  allow  them  to  remain  slaves,  — 
should  the  loyalists  of  the  Slave  States  have  more  in- 
demnity than  the  loyalists  of  the  Free  States  ?  Are  we 
not  all,  on  account  of  this  institution  they  are  hugging, 
losing  our  business,  income,  paying  enormous  taxes? 
Shall  our  capitalists  in  the  Free  States  demand  of  the 
government  so  much  on  the  dollar  for  all  they  have 
lost  ?  Loyal  men,  North  and  South,  must  expect  to 
lose ;  and  though  to  hush  the  crying  children,  and  to 
be  generous  to  those  who  are  unused  to  labor,  we  are 
all  willing  to  compensate  these  Southern  loyalists,  yet 
in  strict  justice  the  injured  commerce  of  the  North  has 
as  much  right  to  demand  compensation. 

In  God's   name,  let  us  have   no   half-work   in   this 


140  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

matter  !  This  pitiful  little  interest  must  not  spancel  the 
nation  in  the  great  stride  now  demanded  of  it.  Though 
to  them  emancipation  itself  will  bring  wealth  and  more 
lasting  benefits,  yet  let  them  be  paid  ;  as  Sumner  said, 
"  A  bridge  of  gold  would  be  cheap,  should  the  retreating 
fiend  demand  it." 

One  stroke  of  Titian's  brush,  it  is  said,  changed  the 
face  of  a  leopard  to  that  of  a  beautiful  woman.  Free- 
dom is  a  finer  artist,  and  beneath  her  touch,  barren 
Virginia  and  wasted  Kentucky  and  semi-chaotic  Mis- 
souri would  have  their  myriad  sleeping  energies  break 
forth  into  smiling  bloom  and  beauty. 

Do  you  think,  Sir,  that,  after  this  fearful  experience, 
the  American  people  would  welcome  you  and  hail  you 
as  their  national  saviour  if  you  should  restore  them  the 
Union  with  Slavery  in  it  ?  Never,  never  !  The  masses 
may  tell  you  so,  little  knowing  what  a  return  to 
the  Union  with  Slavery  in  it  means :  but  it  would  not 
take  long  to  teach  them,  and  they  would  heap  your 
name  with  curses  ! 

You  may  think,  and  they  may  think,  that  it  would 
be  a  safe  experiment  to  try :  you  may  say,  "  The  insti- 
tution must  be  on  the  down-hill :  it  can  never  rule  the 
country  again."  0,  Sir,  I  beseech  you  to  remember 
that  it  was  precisely  because  Slavery  seemed  to  our 
fathers  to  be  on  the  down-hill,  precisely  because  they 
thought  they  saw  its  grave  already  dug  in  the  limita- 
tion of  the  slave-trade,  that  they  suffered  it  to  exist 
in  the  new  government.  They  dealt  with  it  as  on 


TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.    141 

the  down-hill,  and  lo  !  we   reap  the  bitter  results  of 
their  mistake. 

Slavery  has  far  less  appearance  now  of  being  on  the 
down-hill  than  it  had  then. 

Good  things  come  hard  ;  but  you  have  only  to  leave 
your  field  unoccupied  by  valuable  growths  one  season 
for  it  to  be  filled  with  weeds.  If  you  could  give  us 
the  Union  again  with  Slavery  in  it,  —  which  God 
forbid !  —  it  would  only  be  for  the  old  strife  of  wheat 
and  tare  to  be  renewed,  only  to  have  new  war-fires 
kindled  in  which  to  burn  the  tares  which  the  enemy 
is  ever  ready  to  sow  and  foster. 

But,  Sir,  it  is  very  plain  that  the  alternative  of  re- 
storing the  Union  with  Slavery  in  it  is  not  longer  before 
you :  you  are  to  restore  us  the  Union  without  Slavery, 
or  you  are  to  restore  to  us  a  country  with  its  form  of 
government  radically  changed.  These  are  the  alterna- 
tives. The  sword  can  kill  the  body,  but  not  the  soul : 
it  must  leave  the  disloyal  element,  the  moral  causes 
of  rebellion,  in  full  activity.  The  sword  cannot  change 
muttering  hate  to  love,  or  treachery  to  good  faith.  It 
is  fundamental  in  the  theory  of  our  government,  that, 
from  the  Presidency  down  to  a  village  justice,  people 
must  be  represented  by  officers  elected  by  themselves 
and  from  their  own  midst.  There  could  never  have 
been  any  obstacle  to  the  glorious  development  of  re- 
publican government  in  this  country,  had  we  not  taken 
into  it  a  so-called  institution  whose  nature  it  was  to 
prey  upon  the  very  tissues  of  all  government.  That 


142  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

which,  monarchies  had  been  unable  to  get  along  with, 
we  tried  to  preserve  in  a  republic  ;  and  the  experiment 
has  turned  out  like  the  ancient  mode  of  punishment 
which  bound  a  living  body  limb  to  limb,  face  to  face, 
with  a  rotting  corpse,  until  the  living  should  perish  by 
the  stench  of  the  dead. 

Now,  either  we  must  cut  the  cords  which  bind  us  to 
this  body  of  death,  or  it  must  assimilate  us  to  itself; 
either  we  must  be  free  from  Slavery,  or  we  must  adopt 
its  rules,  —  we  must  impose  masters  upon  eight  mil- 
lions of  people,  we  must  rule  by  military  patrol,  we 
must  suspend  the  guaranties  of  the  citizen's  rights  for 
military  reasons.  And  thus  American  Liberty,  from 
being  a  rock  under  our  feet,  would  become  the  merest 
shifting  quicksand. 

Every  time,  Sir,  that  the  gates  of  Forts  Warren  and 
Lafayette  swung  open,  the  shriek  of  their  hinges  pierced 
every  heart  in  America  which  knew  the  sacred  value 
of  those  writs  and  forms  which  Treason  compelled  you 
to  set  aside ;  for  they  knew  that,  whilst  you  could  be 
trusted,  it  was  not  certain  that  your  successor  could 
be.  Our  fathers  had  a  good  old  version  of  a  Psalm 
which  ran  thus  :  — 

"  He  digged  a  pit, 
He  digged  it  deep, 
He  digged  it  for  his  brother, 
But  through  his  sin, 
He  did  fall  in 
The  pit  he  digged  for  t'  other." 

Would  it  not  be  poetic  justice,  Mr.  President,  if,  Slav- 


TO   THE   PRESIDENT   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.         143 

ery  having  digged  this  pit  of  arbitrary  and  martial  law 
for  us,  it  should  be  allowed  to  slide  into  the  pit  it 
"  digged  for  t'  other  "  ? 

Sir,  in  five  years  the  most  ardent  Universalist  would 
provide  a  special  clause  for  the  everlasting  damnation 
of  the  man  who  helps  to  have  that  pit  filled  up  without 
Slavery  being  at  the  bottom  of  it ! 

Let  me  not  be  regarded  as  one  of  those  who  are 
ready  to  cavil  at  the  President's  use  of  these  unusual 
powers  ;  they  were  used  honestly,  firmly,  and  in  no  case 
for  persecution  ;  but  there  were  many  who  could  not 
help  thinking  how  much  better  it  were  if  the  same 
ends  could  be  reached  by  sacrificing,  not  a  pound  of 
living  flesh,  but  the  cancer  feeding  on  that  flesh, — 
not  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus,  but  the  base  interest 
that  makes  men  traitors ! 

The  Hour  I  have  called  Golden,  but  it  comes  to 
us  in  sombre,  dreary  habiliments.  Ah,  God !  to  pass 
through  these  hospitals  where  lie  the  young  men  who 
a  year  ago  were  the  ruddy  flowers  of  happy  homes  ! 
To  see  the  wounded,  rebel  and  loyal,  seated  on  straw 
in  wagons,  foot-sole  to  foot-sole,  the  same  clear,  frank 
eyes  meeting  each  other,  the  same  young,  honest 
voices  from  both,  and  not  to  see  the  horrid  demon 
driving  both  !  Alas  for  the  hearts  on  the  battle-field 
and  those  at  home ;  for  the  ball  that  pierces  any  sol- 
dier's heart  never  lodges  there,  but  speeds  onward  to 
pierce  other  hearts  far  away ;  and  for  the  broken 
prophecies  and  promises  of  life  ;  for  those  whose  life 


144  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

ebbs  away  to-day  where  no  hand  is  near  to  soothe, 
no  kind  one  near  to  receive  the  last  sigh,  and  treas- 
ure for  the  dear  ones  at  home  the  last  message  of 
love ! 

You  are  our  President,  and,  in  a  sacred  sense, 
these  are  all  your  children  ;  and  now  you  seem  to 
me  like  one  whose  name  you  bear,  and  who,  in  obe- 
dience to  the  first  Voice  which  he  heard,  laid  his  be- 
loved son  upon  the  altar  of  the  Highest ;  but  when 
thus  his  faith  was  proved,  lo,  an  angel  appeared, 
and  cried,  Stay  thy  hand !  and  the  angel  pointed  to 
a  brute  which  God  had  provided  for  that  sacrifice  in 
place  of  his  son.  Father,  you  have  done  well  in 
obeying  the  first  voice  which  called  for  the  painful 
sacrifice  of  your  own  children ;  but  listen  well,  I 
implore  you,  if  there  be  not  an  angel  of  peace  crying, 
Stay  thy  hand !  Watch  well  if  there  be  not  a 
shining  finger  pointing  -to  the  BRUTE  which,  and 
which  alone,  God  hath  provided  for  the  sacrifice  of 
this  hour ! 


SUESUM   CORDA.  145 

XXI. 

SURSUM    COKDA. 

LEADEN  is  the  casket  before  us,  and  on  it  is  writ- 
ten, "  Who  chooseth  me  must  give  and  hazard  all 
he  hath." 

Leaden,  meagre,  and  pale  ;  but  he  is  a  fool  who 
would  choose  the  caskets  of  gold  and  silver  in  its 
place  ;  for  it  contains  LIBERTY. 

Bresquet,  jester  to  Francis  I.,  kept  a  Calendar  of 
Fools.  When  Charles  V.,  confiding  in  the  generosity 
of  Francis,  passed  through  France  to  appease  the 
rebellion  of  Gaunt,  Bresquet  put  that  Emperor  into 
the  Calendar  of  Fools.  His  king  asked  him  the 
cause.  He  answered,  "  Because  you  have  suffered  at 
the  hands  of  Charles  the  greatest  bitterness  that  ever 
prince  did  from  another  ;  nevertheless,  he  would  trust 
his  person  into  your  hands."  "  Why,  Bresquet," 
said  the  king,  "  what  wilt  thou  say  if  thou  seest  him 
pass  back  in  as  great  safety  as  if  he  marched  through 
the  midst  of  Spain."  Said  Bresquet,  "  Why,  then 
I  will  put  him  out  of  the  Calendar  of  Fools,  and 
put  you  in." 

History  also  keeps  a  Calendar  of  Fools. 

It  has  already  ascribed  it  to  the  insanity  and  folly, 
which,  thank  God,  form  such  large  composite  parts 
of  all  evil,  that  Slavery  has  cast  off  its  legal  pro  tec- 


146  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

tion,  and  passes  through  the  country  it  has  so  foully 
wronged,  a  branded  felon  and  outlaw.  But  if  this 
be  asinine  in  Slavery,  what  place  in  History's  Cal- 
endar of  Fools  will  be  too  prominent  for  this  nation, 
should  it  permit  this  devil  to  pass  as  safely  as  ever, 
crushing  under  his  cloven  foot  every  fair  growth  of 
Liberty,  and  impudently  defying  the  country  upon 
which  he  has  brought  every  conceivable  woe  ? 

There  is  danger  that,  if  left  to  our  politicians,  this 
golden  hour  will  simply  inscribe  "  Yankee "  on  the 
Calendar  of  Fools  ;  for  there  is  nothing  so  unfathom- 
ably  stupid  as  moral  cowardice.  "  Fear  nothing  but 
fear,"  says  Montaigne.  To-day  you  can  count  on 
the  fingers  of  one  hand  the  men  in  Washington  who 
can  say  Abolitionist  without  the  normal  prefix  damned. 
When  the  President,  even,  wishes  to  use  the  phrase 
in  a  friendly  way,  he  says  Abolishment.  It  is  plain 
that  these  men  can  be  used  by  the  earnest  hearts 
of  America  only  for  filtration.  As  the  waters  of  our 
great  Western  rivers  are  passed  through  filters  of 
stone  before  they  are  clear  enough  to  drink,  so  the 
somewhat  muddy  streams  of  American  Liberty  must 
find  in  Cabinet  and  Congress  their  stony  filters, 
whose  restraint  will  be  purifying. 

But  it  will  be  purifying  only  if  we  see  that  the 
streams  pass  through  them :  remaining  checked  by 
them,  the  waters  shall  become  stagnant  and  poi- 
sonous. 

We  have  no  Joshua  to  bid  the  sun  stand  still  and 


SURSUM   COEDA.  147 

prolong  our  Golden  Hour  beyond  its  last  diamond 
minute.  Meanwhile,  the  inevitable  horizon  of  earthly 
necessity  approaches  nearer  and  nearer  to  it.  The 
exigencies  of  Northern  society  may  assist  traitors  to 
put  an  end  to  this  war,  even  if  it  be  not  a  noble 
end :  the  heavy  taxes  may  bring  men  down  on  their 
bellies.  The  rude  state  of  society  in  the  South  —  not 
more  complex  than  an  oyster  —  can  co-exist  with 
the  rude  conditions  of  war  ;  but  the  North  will  pres- 
ently find  an  apology  for  evading  the  responsibility 
it  should  fulfil ;  for  it  has  no  right  to  allow  a  bar- 
barous Slavery-despotism  to  build  itself  upon  a  half 
of  this  continent. 

But  will  foreign  powers  allow  this  war  to  continue 
indefinitely  ? 

Revolutions  are  not  bad,  sometimes :  the  revolutions 
of  this  planet,  for  instance :  they  go  on  and  do  not  up- 
set the  world's  universal  table,  nor  rust  its  loom,  nor 
interfere  with  France's  afternoon  cigar.  Nay  !  by  such 
revolution  all  these  are  supplied.  It  seems  to  get 
a  slow  entrance  into  the  American  cerebrum,  that  in 
a  family  of  nations,  as  in  a  family  of  individuals,  one 
member  is  not  permitted  to  throw  all  the  rest  into 
confusion.  Enough  time  is  to  be  allowed  for  the  vin- 
dication of  national,  as  of  personal  individuality  ;  but 
when  nationality  becomes  burning  down  St.  Paul's  to 
broil  Jonathan's  steak,  then  nationality  is  the  syno- 
*nyme  of  nuisance.  It  is  sure  to  be  abated.  My  Ameri- 
can masters,  if  you  desire  to  have  the  nations  pause 


148  THE   GOLDEN   HOUR. 

and  admire  before  your  Revolution,  and  not  hustle 
it  off  as  a  sham,  let  it  be  one  spheral  and  vital,  lead- 
ing on  springtide  and  waving  summer-fields,  for  you 
and  for  the  weary  world.  Heavens  !  what  an  opportu- 
nity you  have  for  this ! 

The  most  imminent  danger  now,  as  it  has  been  from 
the  first,  is  that  we  may  be  induced  by  the  semi-loyal 
States,  whose  treachery  is  all  the  more  dangerous  be- 
cause it  believes  itself  the  only  loyalty,  to  allow  Slav- 
ery to  remain  unburied,  to  be  revived  under  their 
moonshine. 

Few  as  are  the  slaveholders  and  the  slaves  in  these 
Border  States,  let  us  not  be  deceived  into  thinking 
them  of  little  importance  in  the  issue.  There  is  a 
German  maxim  which  reads,  "  Give  the  Devil  a  lock 
of  your  hair,  and  he  will  be  sure  to  get  your  whole 
head." 

Three  Hessian  flies  only  were  seen  upon  the  cabin- 
wall  of  a  Dutch  ship  which  approached  an  American 
wharf ;  now  what  field  in  the  continent  has  not  known 
the  devastations  of  the  Hessian  fly  ?  Six  Norway 
rats  swam  ashore  from  another  Dutch  ship  in  our 
•waters  ;  now  where  is  the  cellar  without  them  ?  Two 
hundred  and  forty  years  ago  twenty  slaves  were  brought 
to  Jamestown,  Va.,  in  Dutch  ship  No.  3  ;  —  now  where 
can  vou  go,  from  Bunker  Hill  to  Sumter,  without 
hearing  the  rattle  of  a  slave's  chain  ? 

Brothers,  let  us  make  a  clean  sweep  of  this  thing" 
whilst  we  are  about  it! 


SURSUM  CORDA.  149 

An  ancient  Persian  scripture  says :  "  Justice  is  so 
dear  to  the  heart  of  Nature,  that  if  at  last  an  atom  of 
injustice  should  be  found,  the  blue  sky  would  shrivel 
like  a  snake-skin  to  cast  it  off." 

A  single  slave  held  in  this  nation  will  break  it  to 
fragments  again,  and  as  often  as  we  try  it ;  just  as  a 
single  powder-grain  ignited  at  the  heart  of  the  rock 
of  Gibraltar  would  rive  it  asunder.  Will  those  who 
know  that  the  rights  of  the  poorest  man  are  of  more 
importance  than  a  thousand  unions,  ever  keep  silent 
or  patient  with  even  one  fetter  in  the  land  ?  By  God, 
NEVER ! 

These  slaves  of  the  loyal  States  we  take  because  they 
are  essential  to  any  permanent  peace  in  the  country, 
and  if  we  are  compelled  to  abnormal  strife  for  peace, 
we  have  a  military  right  to  strive  for  a  permanent 
peace,  and  not  merely  to  defeat  an  army  in  this  or  that 
engagement.  "We  take  these  slaves  as  we  have  taken 
the  houses  and  stock  of  loyal  men  on  our  march.  Let 
them  bring  in  their  bills.  Doubtless  we  shall  have  to 
pay  more  than  the  number  of  loyal  slaveholders  would 
warrant ;  for  we  shall  be  sure  to  find,  when  pay-day 
comes,  that  every  slaveholder  had  been  all  along  a  very 
Abdiel  for  fidelity:  but  who  shall  stop  to  count  the 
money  that  goes  to  ransom  a  race  and  a  nation  from 
the  slavery  which  buys  and  sells  the  bodies  of  the  one 
and  the  souls  of  the  other  ? 

We  shall  need  liberation  first  in  these  Border  States, 
not  only  because  we  must  make  a  clean  sweep  of  the 


150  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

evil,  but  because  these  Border  State  negroes  are  to  be 
our  guaranties  of  good  faith  to  the  more  Southern 
negroes  ;  they  are  to  be  both  our  banners  hung  out 
upon  the  outer  walls,  and  our  telegraph  lines  along 
which  the  electric  word  of  Liberation  shall  flash. 

And  here  is  just  where  all  these  confiscation-bills 
will  accomplish  nothing  real.  Every  slave  would  see 
that  Trumbull's  bill  would  end  in  a  transfer  of  masters, 
—  and  he  would  not  respond  to  it.  We  must  not  for- 
get, that  between  us  and  those  Negroes  there  stand  our 
mediatorial  Maryhmders,  and  darling  pets,  the  Kentuck- 
ians, — just  sympathetic  enough  with  seceders  to  buy 
up  claims  to  and  descriptions  of  running  slaves,  just 
star-spangled  enough  to  get  back  the  same  from  free 
lines  or  States,  —  and  from  these  Border  States  as 
from  an  ark,  when  the  deluge  subsided,  the  South 
would  be  repopulated  with  the  same  slaves. 

Have  you,  friend,  in  these  late  months,  sat  in  the 
gallery  of  Congress,  heart-sick,  hearing  everything  dis- 
cussed but  the  right  thing  ?  The  hour-hand  wheels 
round  and  round,  and  above  the  clock  sits  the  Muse 
with  motionless  pen,  the  very  bronze  eye  sad  that  no 
true  movement  could  she  record  on  her  scroll.  Con- 
fiscation, forfeiture,  colonization,  —  the  Southern  white 
man  laughs  at  these,  the  black  man  cannot  hear 
them.  Does  the  Negro  wish  to  be  exiled  ?  Or  does 
he  wish  to  come  North  to  be  kept  in  jail  till  two 
witnesses  prove  his  master  a  traitor  ? 

My    countrymen,    you    walk    a    scymitar-bridge    to 


SURSUM   CORDA.  151 

your  Paradise,  and  the  billows  of  hell  underneath  re- 
ceive him  who  steps  one  inch,  as  much  as  him  who 
steps  a  yard,  aside. 

Sitting  there,  I  was  reminded  of  how  an  old  uncle 
of  our  neighborhood  would  quiz  us;  "  Boys,"  he  said, 
once,  "  I  got  a  letter  from  a  little  boy  to-day,  and 
—  ha,  ha! — how  do  you  think  he  spelt  dog?"  Then 
we  all  made  our  guesses,  —  dogg,  doag,  dogge,  dorg. 
At  last,  when  we  have  exhausted  our  ingenuity,  the 
old  uncle  quietly  replies,  "  Why,  he  spelt  it  d-o-g,  of 
course."  Just  as  idly  and  as  childishly  are  our  rulers 
trifling  with  the  sacred  hours,  to  see  if  something  else 
cannot  be  made  to  wield  the  divine  spell  of  simple 
JUSTICE. 

You  are  praying  for  and  talking  of  the  coming 
man.  Would  he  find  faith  in  the  land?  Are  you 
quite  sure  you  would  not  crucify  him  —  or  hang  him, 
as  the  American  way  is  —  should  he  come  ?  That  is 
what  the  Jews  did  with  their  Coming  Man,  after  they 
had  been  praying  Heaven  to  send  him  for  four  thou- 
sand years.  Two  years  ago  the  wild,  half-clad  fore- 
runner of  our  coming  man,  whose  meat  was  wild 
honey,  was  heard  in  the  wilderness  of  Virginia,  and 
his  head  was  brought  in  a  charger  to  Slavery:  so 
much  it  cost  him  to  declare  the  axe  laid  to  the  root 
of  the  accursed  tree.  How  little  does  this  nation 
know  what  a  right  and  true  man,  should  he  break 
into  our  midst,  would  do  with  us !  Little  see  we  the 
piled  shreds  of  broken  red-tape,  —  little  the  moun- 


152  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

tain  of  the  'refuse  of  epaulets  and  brass  buttons! 
He  would  re-distribute  Washington  into  the  original 
elements,  and  gather  it  for  loam  about  the  roots  of 
the  sapling  he  would  rear. 

Yet  pray  on,  0  people,  for  the  coming  man  !  Not 
as  you  expect  it  shall  be  his  advent ;  but  he  shall 
come,  and  before  the  masses  are  ready  for  him. 
Somewhere  the  granite  is  crystallizing  for  his  bones ; 
somewhere  the  metal  is  refining  for  his  blood ;  some- 
where Nature  is  fashioning  the  exquisite  lobes  of  his 
brain :  presently  America's  maternal  cry  shall  be 
heard,  and  THE  MAN  shall  clasp  hands  with  THE 
HOUR. 

When  it  is  understood  to  be  absolutely  certain  that 
the  honest  masses  of  this  country  are  determined 
never  again  to  compromise  with  Slavery,  nor  to  al- 
low it  the  protection  of  this  government,  then  the 
national  saviour  will  come,  by  whose  life  and  death 
the  nation  will  be  saved.  But  do  these  honest  masses 
realize  that,  if  a  compromise,  involving  an  amnesty 
to  Slavery,  should  be  proposed  by  the  Confederates  to 
our  Cabinet  and  Congress  as  at  present  organized,  it 
would  certainly  be  accepted? 

Up,  hearts  of  America,  and  let  your  irrevocable 
"  GET  THEE  BEHIND  us !  "  thunder  at  the  gates  of  the 
capital,  and  go  crashing  through  the  South,  a  bomb 
whose  flame  cannot  be  extinguished !  Let  Slavery 
know  that  it  shall  never,  never  find  peace  in  this  na- 
tion ;  let  your  rulers  know  that,  if  they  shall  give  you 


SURSUM   CORDA.  153 

a  Union  with  Slavery  in  it,  you  will  make  of  it  such 
a  Union  as  fire  and  gunpowder  make ! 

The  men  who  are  to  save  this  nation,  if  it  is  to  be 
saved,  are  those  who  see  that  it  must  and  should  rise 
or  fall  with  simple  justice  ;  and  those  who  strive  for 
a  Free  Republic  must  see  eye  to  eye. 

There  is  not  one  fibre  of  moral  earnestness,  not 
one  atom  of  fidelity  or  conviction,  more  than  is  need- 
ed to  rescue  the  nation  from  terrible  dissolution,  or 
the  worse  fate  of  a  Union  sealed  in  its  dishonor.  All 
hearts  must  work,  and  they  must  work  together. 

The  best  friend  of  freedom  in  the  government  is 
the  President.  But  in  this  matter  he  has  refused  to 
lead.  Repeatedly  he  said,  "  If  the  people  feel  so,  let 
them  organize  their  will  and  pass  it  through  Con- 
gress,"—  ignoring  the  fact  that  the  people  had  set 
him  apart  from  their  millions  to  organize  from  the 
feeling  of  the  masses  an  operative  will.  Then,  com- 
ing up  among  the  people,  they  all  said,  "We  had 
best  leave  all  this  to  the  President:  he  is  at  the 
centre,  and  knows  more  than  we  do ;  he  '11  do  the 
right  thing  at  the  right  time."  And  so  the  President 
and  the  people  have  been  all  along  playing  at  battle- 
door  with  the  Slavery  question,  each  tossing  it  to  the 
other  to  be  dealt  with.  At  length  Old  Abe  agrees  to 
take  a  step.  Borrowing  a  good  idea  from  his  former 
occupation,  he  inserts  the  smallest  edge  of  a  wedge 
into  a  small  crack  of  the  log;  then  he  says  to  Con- 
gress and  the  people,  "  Now,  if  you  want  to  split  that 

7* 


154  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

log,  the  way  is  to  strike  that  wedge."  Let  us  take 
the  President  at  his  word,  and  strike  ! 

How  can  you  strike  ?  Let  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  this  nation  send  his  or  her  prayer  to  the 
Capitol  to  have  Slavery  abolished.  And  warn  your 
representative  to  help  this  measure  or  hang  himself 
on  Capitol  Hill  before  coming  back.  You  need  not 
be  particular  about  the  way :  where  there  's  a  will, 
there  's  a  way.  All  these  technicalities  are  so  much 
thin  disguise  for  a  wavering  purpose :  let  Congress  or 
the  President  rise  to  the  point  of  striking  Slavery 
dead,  and  whether  they  are  States  or  Territories,  or 
whether  Andy  Johnson  is  a  military  or  civic  officer, 
will  be  but  a  strife  of  words. 

The  right  to  open  schools  for  Negroes  in  North 
Carolina,  against  the  laws  of  that  State,  includes  the 
right  to  set  every  slave  in  it  free. 

Upon  the  North  the  guilt  of  this  Rebellion  is 
heaviest ;  and  upon  the  North  the  retribution  will  be 
heaviest.  The  North  has  been  cruel  to  the  South,  — 
cruel  as  is  he  who  continues  to  trust  to  an  infant  the 
knife  with  which  it  has  already  gashed  its  flesh. 

0  Northern  Conscience,  trace  honestly  the  blood- 
drippings  of  this  Rebellion,  even  if  they  lead  to  thine 
own  door  ! 

If  one  should  see  a  fellow-man  drinking  poison,  and 
should  not  strain  every  sinew  to  stop  it,  the  law  holds 
him  justly  as  the  suicide's  murderer.  How  long  have 
you  sat  with  folded  arms  seeing  your  Southern  brother 


SURSUM   CORDA.  155 

drinking  this  vile  drug,  which  has  finally  maddened 
him !  How  long  did  your  representatives,  your  clergy- 
men, your  merchants,  cry  Hush  to  all  who  lifted  up 
the  warning  voice,  —  whilst  to  the  slave's  cry  your  ears 
were  stopped  with  cotton,  to  his  oppressor  your  tongue 
was  sweetened  with  sugar  ?  And  now  when,  having 
gone  forward  upon  the  logical  path,  cleared  by  your- 
selves, —  mobbing  and  hanging  all  who  would  have 
saved  them,  —  they  reach  the  inevitable  climax  of  their 
fearful  disease,  still  you  will  not  be  humane  enough  to 
take  the  poison  from  their  lips ;  even  now  you  are 
talking  in  cold  blood  about  Jamaica  and  sugar,  and 
whether  by  emancipation  sugar  rose  a  cent  or  a  cent 
and  a  quarter;  still,  whilst  your  left  eye  is  011  your 
banner,  your  right  is  on  your  hogshead  ! 

Nearly  every  human  being  sharing  the  blood  of  him 
who  writes  these  words  is  arrayed  against  this  country. 
You  think  them  guilty  traitors  ?  But  I  remember  how 
Northern  preachers  proved  to  them  that  they  stood 
upon  the  Rock  of  Ages,  how  to  them  Northern  repre- 
sentatives cried,  "  Great  is  Slavery,  and  the  Constitution 
is  its  prophet !  "  —  and  I  will  not  fling  hard  names  at 
them,  lest  they  should  strike  leading  Union  men  who 
deserted  the  South  at  the  one  moment  when  there 
might  have  been  some  courage  in  clinging  to  her ;  the 

"  Ever  strong  upon  the  stronger  side." 

But  you,  true-hearted  Northmen,  I  implore,  ere  you 
go  further  in  this  butchery,  to  try  if  you  cannot  SAVE 


156  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

the  South.  What  if  this  Republic  should  be  gasping 
for  a  simple  breath  of  justice,  —  the  very  atmosphere  of 
Liberty  !  At  least  shall  we  not  wash  our  hands  of  their 
guilt  concerning  the  crushed  black  and  the  equally 
crushed  white  of  the  South  ?  0,  is  there  no  power 
in  Love  greater  than  any  that  Hate  can  wield  ?  Is 
there  no  strength  in  Eternal  Justice  ?  Is  there  in  this 
noon  of  the  nineteenth  century  so  little  power  of  heart 
and  brain  that  we  must  yet  adhere  to  the  methods  of 
the  savage  and  the  assassin  ? 

We  smile  to-day  at  the  heathen  of  antiquity  who 
hesitated  whether  he  would  make  his  log  into  a  god 
or  a  three-legged  stool ;  but  our  children  may  weep 
in  the  retrospect  of  this  day,  when  a  great  nation,  with 
its  government  before  it  to  be  necessarily  refashioned, 
hesitated  whether  to  make  of  it  a  centralization  whose 
three  legs  must  be  Southern  barbarism,  Northern  de- 
moralization, and  perpetual  strife,  or  a  godlike  Union 
impregnable  as  Justice  itself. 

Courage,  brothers !  much  as  the  Devil  has  to  do 
with  it,  this  world  still  belongs  to  God. 

Be  not  entangled  in  the  illusions  which  twine  about 
and  bind  your  rulers.  Slavery  seems  to  them  a 
strong  thing  ;  so  mariners  have  mistaken  a  fog-bank 
for  the  rock  of  Gibraltar.  There  is  not  a  mushroom 
that  grows  which  is  not  stronger  than  Slavery,  against 
which  every  whispering  wind,  every  sunbeam,  every 
leaf,  and  every  human  blood-drop  is  conspiring.  I 
know  that  our  government  sees  it  as  a  strong  steed 


SURSUM   CORDA.  157 

without  which  it  cannot  ride  to  victory  in  the  South  ; 
but  it  is  a  stick  horse  which  it  childishly  carries,  main- 
taining that  it  is  carried  by  it :  just  let  the  govern- 
ment stop  carrying  Slavery,  and  it  will  fall  the  dead 
stick  that  it  is.  I  challenge  the  President  to  permit 
me  —  one  of  the  weakest  and  obscurest  friends  of 
Freedom  —  to  liberate  the  slaves  of  the  South,  prom- 
ising only  that  I  shall  not  be  interfered  with  by  United 
States  law.  I  will  not  call  for  any  protection  by  its 
arms  from  the  Southerners ;  the  law  of  gravitation 
will  bear  the  small  stone  cut  from  the  mountain-top 
down  its  sides,  even  to  the  gulf. 

The  whining  and  cursing  of  the  pro-slavery  men  in 
Congress  are  a  confession  that  Slavery,  with  its  swash- 
ing and  martial  outside,  is  conscious  of  this  essential 
weakness.  Those  Border  State  men  know  well  that 
the  winds  and  rains  and  heats  of  this  thawing  season 
have  made  its  crust  so  thin  that  it  will  not  bear  the 
pressure  of  one  firm  foot.  And,  alas  !  the  indecent 
eagerness  with  which  the  President  hastened  to  re- 
fasten  the  gyves  upon  a  million  human  beings  whom 
the  noble  Hunter  had  set  free, — AND  WHO  ARE  FREE, — 
engenders  the  saddest  misgiving  of  the  hour ;  namely, 
that  the  President  knows  the  weakness  of  Slavery, 
knows  that  he  could  free  the  land  forever  from  that 
crime  and  its  retribution  now  heavy  upon  us,  but 
heeds  some  baser  end  to  be  subserved  by  retaining 
this  institution. 

A  million  blood-stains  crimson  your  hands,  Mr.  Presi- 


158  THE   GOLDEN  HOUR. 

dent ;  damned  spots,  which  not  all  the  rivers  and  lakes 
in  America  can  wash  away  ;  but  in  one  globule  of  ink 
upon  your  table  you  may  wash  them  away.  If  your 
Golden  Hour  shall  pass,  and  those  beings  you  have 
cruelly  robbed  remain  slaves,  the  time  will  come  when 
you  will  pray  bitterly  to  be  able  to  exchange  your  lot 
with  the  lowliest,  most  deeply  wronged  slave  in  South 
Carolina ! 

But  even  with  all  these  powers  enlisted  to  sustain 
that  institution  (!),  which  without  them  could  not 
stand  one  day,  it  is  not,  brothers,  a  formidable  foe, 
if  we  can  bring  to  confront  it  the  true  and  spotless 
spirit  of  Liberty. 

Strong  as  the  other  is  weak  —  chief  among  those 
perilous  rudimentary  laws  which,  being  bred  in  the 
bone  of  the  world,  must  come  out  in  the  flesh  —  is 
Liberty.  There  is  a  story  of  a  chemist  who  under- 
took with  powerful  agents  to  extract  a  birth-mark 
from  his  wife's  cheek.  After  a  long  while  he  drew 
it  out,  but  he  drew  her  life  with  it.  Liberty  is  the 
birth-mark  of  man,  as  it  is  his  birthright ;  and  when 
man  ceases  to  love  Liberty,  it  will  be  because  his 
race  has  become  extinct. 

The  spirit  of  Liberty  is  as  ancient  as  the  most  con- 
servative could  desire  ;  it  began  with  the  first  throb 
of  life  which  ever  stirred  the  heart  of  Nature.  From 
that  heart  comes  the  ascending  scale  of  life,  each 
higher  animal  form  differing  from  that  which  pre- 
ceded it  simply  by  its  greater  freedom.  Where  the 


SUESUM   CORDA.  159 

oyster  was  anchored  to  a  rock,  the  fish  moves  freely ; 
where  the  blossom  was  bound  to  the  stem,  the  but- 
terfly comes,  a  freed  blossom.  Each  form  was  only  a 
revolutionary  effort  for  more  independent  life.  The 
human  form,  when  it  appeared,  was  the  last  and  the 
decisive  battle  of  the  animal  to  rise  up  from  the 
earth,  and  stand  free  and  erect,  by  that  sign  sover- 
eign of  the  planet.  Thus  the  everlasting  burden  of 
Nature  rolls  through  the  echoing  caverns  of  past 
epochs,  and  bursts  up  in  the  hearts  and  tongues  sent 
from  her  womb  to  cry  aloud,  and  to  struggle  end- 
lessly for  Liberty.  When  man  first  wronged  his 
brother,  that  brother's  blood  cried  to  heaven  from 
this  same  old  earth ;  and,  until  the  last  wrong  is 
righted  and  the  last  of  her  children  free,  her  mother's 
heart  will  heave  with  pain,  and  utter  its  uncontrolla- 
ble protest,  to  be  followed,  if  unheeded,  with  fiercer 
earthquakes  than  these. 

Admit  not,  then,  into  your  hearts  a  single  fear  for 
Liberty's  cause  with  her  impotent  antagonist,  what- 
ever fears  you  may  have  that  this  proud  government, 
having  deliberately  taken  the  side  of  Slavery,  may  be 
buried  in  its  grave,  which  every  bayonet,  North  and 
South,  is  digging,  and  equally.  But  not  to  that  end, 
nor  for  that  reason,  should  a  true  and  faithful  heart 
seize  the  bayonet  or  other  implement,  whether  the 
government  call  or  command.  Rather  let  each  friend 
of  his  country  plant  himself  upon  his  loyalty  to  that 
which  is  higher  than  the  banner  of  the  Union, — 


THE   GOLDEN  HOUR.  ^  Cj-J 

->l          the  banner  of  Liberty ;  with  that  sacred  ensign  float- 

^J         ing  over  him,   let    him   stand   or   be   stricken   down. 

/     Up,  hearts,  and  let  each  deliver  his  own  soul !     Up, 

and  the  government  will  be  forced  to  obey  you,  for 

you  will  bear  the  tables  of  eternal  law  in  your  hands ! 

Men  need  not  be  dozing  in  a  White  House,  or  wran- 

<    gling  in  a  Capitol,  to  be  strong :   each  step   upward 

in  office  marks  another  shackle   assumed.     But  true 

hearts    are    free,  —  free    to   stand,    or    be    hanged,   if 

need    be,  —  and   Liberty   may   yet  need    her  martyrs 

!in  the  North. 

If  this  country  is  to  be  saved,  the  Abolitionists  are 
to  save  it ;  and,  though  they  seem  few  in  numbers, 
they  are  not  by  a  thousandth  so  few  as  were  Chris- 
tians when  Jesus  suffered,  or  Protestants  when  Luther 
spoke.  There  is  need  only  that  we  should  stand  as 
one  man,  and  unto  the  end,  for  an  absolutely  Free 
Republic,  swearing  to  promote  eternal  strife  until  it 
be  attained,  —  until  in  waters  which  Agitation,  the 
angel  of  Freedom,  has  troubled,  the  diseased  nation 
shall  bathe,  and  be  made  every  whit  whole. 

The  Golden  Hour  is  before  us :  there  is  in  America 
enough  wisdom  and  courage  to  coin  it,  ere  it  passes, 
into  national  honor  and  peace,  if  it  is  all  put  forth. 

Up,  hearts  ! 

THE   END. 


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